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OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 



OUTLINES 



OF 



PSYCHOLOGY 



BY 

HARALD HOFFDING 

PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN 





TRANSLATED BY 


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\RY E. LOWNDES 






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MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. 

NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO. 
1896 

The Right of Translation and Reprodtiction is Reserved 



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Richard Clay and Sons, Limited, 
london and bungay. 



First Edition February 1891. 
Reprinted November 1891, 1893, li 



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LC Control Number 




tmp96 025773 



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TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. 



This translation is not from the original Danish, but from 
the German. The German edition .is however accepted by 
Dr. Hoffding as adequately representing the original, and I 
hope therefore the present version has not suffered by being 
at secondhand. I am glad to have this opportunity of 
thanking Dr. Hoffding for his cordial interest in the prepara- 
tion of the English edition and for his kindness in sending 
corrections and notes where later discoveries made it neces- 
sary ; and also of thanking Dr. Ward and Prof Groom 
Robertson for their very kind help with difficult passages 
and expressions, and Mr. James Sime for preparing the index 
and for his careful revision of the translation as it passed 
through the press. 

Mary E. Lowndes. 



CONTENTS 



PAGi 



I. Subject and Method of Psychology i 

I. Provisional description of psychology as the science 
of mind. — 2. External perception precedes internal. — 3. 
Evidence of language. — 4. Psychological development of the 
distinction between self and not-self. — 5. The mythological 
conception of the mind. — 6. Direct and indirect apprehension 
of mental life. — 7. Pyschology and metaphysics. — 8. Method 
of psychology, a. The difQculty of introspection, b. In- . 
fluence of individual differences, c. Psychological analysis. 
d. Experimental psychology, e. Subjective and objective 
psychology. /. The mutual relation of the different methods. 
— 9. The relation of psychology to logic and ethics. 

II. Mind and Body 29 

I. The empirical (phenomenological) standpoint. — 2. The 
law of the persistence of energy. — 3. Organic life and the 
persistence of energy. — 4. a. The importance of the nervous 
system, b. Reflex movement, c. Subordinate nerve-centres. 
d. The cerebrum, e. The cerebrum and the lower centres. 
— 5. Provisional account of consciousness. — 6. Parallel 
features in consciousness and the nervous system. — 7. Pro- 
portionality between conscious life and cerebral activity. — 
8. a. Dualistic-spiritualistic hypothesis, b. Monistic-material- 
istic hypothesis, c. Monistic-spiritualistic hypothesis, d. 
The hypothesis of identity (monism). 

III. The Conscious and the Unconscious 71 

I. Definition of the unconscious. — 2. Conscious thought 
resulting from previous unconscious work. — 3. Conscious 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

sensuous perception resulting from previous unconscious 
work. — 4. Unconscious connecting links. — 5. Instinct and 
habit. — 6. Unconscious and conscious activity simultaneous. 
— 7. Unconscious growth of feeling. — 8. The dream state.— 
9. Awakening through the psychical relation of the impres- 
sion. — 10. Hypothesis as to the extension of mental life.— 
II. Psychology and physical mechanics. — 12. Laws common 
to mind and matter. 



IV. Classification of the Psychological Elements .... 87 

I. Classification of elements, not states. — 2. The psycho- 
logical tripartite division. — 3. The tripartite division not 
original. — 4. Evolution of the individual consciousness. — 
5. Psychological differentiation during the evolution of the 
race. — 6. Conditions of differentiation. — 7. a. No cognition 
without feeling, b. No cognition without will. c. No feel- 
ing without cognition, d. Connection between feeling and 
will, e. The will as first and last. 



V. The Psychology of Cognition , loi 

A. Sensation loi 

I. The psychological significance of the question as to 
the simplicity and self-dependence of sensations. — 2. The 
simplicity of sensations. — 3. The self-dependence of sensa- 
tions. — 4. On the quality of sensations. — 5. The law of 
relativity in the province of sensation. — 6. Motor-sensations. 
— 7. Sensation and movement. 

B. Ideation I2I 

I. Sensation and perception. — 2. Free representations. — 
3. Sensation, perception, and free representation. — 4. Separa- 
tion of free representations or ideas from percepts. — 5 . Formal 
and real unity of consciousness, — 6. Preservation of ideas. — 
7. a. Memory-images, hallucinations, and illusions, h. Re- 
membrance conditioned by the circumstances of the actual 
experience, c. Remembrance, conditioned by the circum 
stances of reproduction, d. Remembrance, conditioned by 
the character of the ideas. — 8. a. Regularity of the combina- 
tion of ideas, h. The laws of combination of ideas, c. 
Fundamental law of combination of ideas, d. The laws of 
obliviscence. — 9. Simple ideas, individual ideas, and general 



CONTENTS k 

PAGE 

ideas. — lo. Language and ideas. — ii. Association of ideas 
and thought. — 12. Formation of free concrete individual ideas 
(imagination). 

C. The Apprehension of Time and Space 184 

I. Conditions of the idea of time. — 2. Development of the 
idea of time. — 3. Symbolic character of the idea of time. — 
4. Estimation of time. — 5. Is the form of space original? — 
6. Is the perception of distance original ? — 7. a. Is the percep- 
tion of surface original ? b. Simultaneous impressions, c. 
Local signs. — 8. *' Nativistic" and genetic theory. — 9. Or- 
ganic basis of the intuition of space. — 10. The idea of 
space. 

D. The Apprehension of Things as Real 205 

I. The content of cognition as expression of a reality. — 
2. Connection as criterion of reality.— 3. The causal relation. 
— 4. Psychological development of the causal concept. — 5. 
The limits of cognition. 

VI. The Psychology of Feeling 221 

A. Feeling and Sensation ....,, 221 

I. Unity of the life of feeling. — 2. Feeling different from 
special sensation. — 3. Feeling and the several senses, a. 
Vital feeling, b. Feelings accompanying contact and move- 
ment, c. Feelings accompanying taste, d. Feelings accom- 
panying smell, e. Feelings accompanying sight and hearing. 
— 4. The natural course of development of the elementary 
feelings. 

B. Feeling and Ideation , 233 

I. Originality of feeling. —2<a;. Disgust, sorrow, hate. b. 
Love, joy, sympathy, c. Impulse, desire, d. Hope, fear. 
e. Mixed feelings. — 3. The law of the development of feel- 
ing. — 4. Remembrance of feelings. 

C Egoistic and Sympathetic Feeling ±\2 

I . Egoistic centre of gravity. — 2. The psychological genesis 
of sympathy. — 3. The physiological basis of sympathy. — 4. 
The feeling of love and sympathy. — 5. Sympathy takes root 
through inheritance and tradition. — 6. Ideal satisfaction of 
sympathy. — 7. Disinterested sympathy. — 8. Ethical and 
religious feeling. — 9. Intellectual and aesthetic feeling. 



5t CONTENTS 

PAGE 

D, The Physiology and the Biology of Feeling 267 

I. The physiological seat of feeling. — 2. The biological 
significance of feeling. — 3. Feeling and the conditions of life. 

E, The Validity of the Law of Relativity for the Feelings . . .275 

I. The law of relativity common to cognition and to feel- 
ing. — 2. Contrast and rhythm of feeling. — 3. Relative feel- 
ings. — 4. Effect of repetition upon feeling. — 5. Emotion and 
passion. — 6. Pessimism and the law of relativity. — 7. No 
neutral states. — 8. The feeling of the sublime. — 9. The feel- 
ing of the ridiculous, a. Laughter apart from anything 
ridiculous, d. Laughter as expression of the feeling of power 
and freedom, c. Sympathetic laughter (humour), d. The 
ridiculous rests on effect of contrast, e. The sublime and the 
ridiculous. 

F, The Influence of Feeling on Cognition 298 

I. Feeling as inhibiting, preserving, and selecting. — 2. In- 
centive of feeling and association of ideas. — 3. The teleology 
of feeling and the mechanism of cognition. — 4. Expansion of 
feeling, a. The anticipating and realizing effect of feeling. 

b. The inciting and animating influence of feeling. 

VII. The Psychology of the Will 308 

A. The Originality of the Will 308 

I. The will the most primitive and the most derivative 
mental expression. — 2. Spontaneity and irritability. — 3. 
Spontaneous and reflex movements in higher organisms. — 
4. The physiological seat of instinct and of will. — 5. In- 
voluntary and voluntary attention. — 6. a. The will and the 
motor-ideas, b. Isolation and combination of movements. 

c. The significance of the inherited basis. 

B, The Will and the other Elements of Consciousness . . . .321 

I. The higher development of the will, conditioned by the 
development of cognition and of feeling, a. The psychology 
of the impulse, b. The wish. c» Deliberation, purpose, and 
resolve. — 2. Reaction of the will upon cognition and feeling. 
a. Reaction of the will upon cognition, b. Reaction of the 
will upon feeling, c. Reaction of the will upon itself. — 
3. Relation of opposition between the will and the other 
elements of consciousness (concentration and expansion).— 



CONTENTS xi 

PAGE 

4. Consciousness of will. a. The consciousness of volition. 
b. The problem of reality in the province of the will. — 5. 
The will and the unconscious mental life. a. The centre of 
consciousness not always the centre of individuality, b. De- 
terminism and indeterminism. 

C. The Individual Character 348 

I. Typical individual differences. — 2. Physical, social, and 
inherited elements. — 3. Psychical individuality an empirical 
limit to cognition. — 4. Psychology and the evolution hypo- 
thesis. 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY 



SUBJECT AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY 

I. Psychology is the science of mind— that is the shortest 
description we can give of the subject of the present inquiries. But 
it is merely a provisional description, yielding no clear and 
distinct conception. It serves merely to mark psychology as the 
science of that which thinks, feels, and wills, in contrast with 
physics as the science of that which moves in space and occupies 
space. These two provinces include everything that can be the 
subject of human research. Psychology is as little bound to begin 
with an explanation of what mind is, as physics is obliged to begin 
with an explanation of what matter is. And this general statement 
of the subject of psychology involves no assumption as to the 
question how far the mind exists, or does not exist, as an 
independent being distinct from matter. It will be our endeavour 
to preserve psychology as a pure science of experience, and to 
distinguish sharply between the given facts and the hypotheses 
employed to classify and explain them. 

But even in starting from the position that mental phenomena 
have certain characteristics which distinguish them from material, 
we presuppose a knowledge which was reached only at a certain 
stage of mental development, and of which we cannot even yet say 
that it is universal. It will set the subject of psychology in a 
^ B 



2 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [i 

clearer light if we adduce certain features characteristic of the way 
in which the idea of the mental has been developed in the human 
race, and is still developed in each individual. 

2. Mental, like bodily, vision is from the beginning directed 
outwards. The eye apprehends external objects, their colours 
and forms, and only by artificial, roundabout ways, sees itself 
and what is within itself. And even in respect of external 
objects, the eye is always naturally set for the vanishing 
point, the greatest distance of sight. While we are conscious 
of a certain effort when the eye has to accommodate itself 
to nearer objects, it is with a feeling of relief and ease that 
we direct the glance from nearer to more distant objects. In 
like manner external objects occupy our attention long before we 
think of the sensuous perception and conception through which 
alone external objects exist for us. Our immediate natural life we 
carry on in sensuous perception and in imagination, not in subjec- 
tive reflection. This is connected with the fact that man acts before 
he theorizes. His weal and his woe are conditioned by his power 
of forgetting himself in the outer world. Observations of animal 
and human life, of the appearance of plants and fruits, of the course 
of the heavenly bodies, etc., are more important in the struggle 
for existence than observations of self. Only at a higher stage of 
culture can the command "know thyself" be pronounced, and with 
it the way be opened to direct psychological inquiry. 

3. Because language was developed under the influence of 
attention directed to the external world, we find that expressions 
for mental phenomena were originally taken from the material 
world. The inner world of mind is denoted by symbols borrowed 
from the outer world of space. This observation had been made 
already by Locke and Leibniz, and the modern science of language 
has confirmed it. *'A11 roots, i.e. all the material elements of 
language, are expressive of sensuous impressions, and of sensuous 
impressions only ; and as all words, even the most abstract and 
sublime, are derived from roots, comparative philology fully endorses 
the conclusions arrived at by Locke. '^ ^ 

There are interesting examples in the words which denote spirit 
and mind in different languages, in the names for mental activities, 
and in the meaning of prepositions. " It may be fairly taken as 

1 Max Miiller, Lectures on the S cience of Language {in^^ &^. 1885), ii-; PP- 372, 373- 
Locke cites as examples : to imagine, apprehend, comprehend, spirit. Muller adds to 
these, among others : animus, from anima, 2:\y {A them); of. Sanscrit an, dlasen, Oreelc 
achzai, and Sanscrit anila, Greek anemos, wind. 



I] SUBJECT AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY 3 

established that all real prepositions originally denote relations of 
space exclusively, not only because all the several significations that 
can be traced lead to this conclusion, but also . . . because these 
spatial relations were the only relations which could be pointed 
out, and were so distinctly apprehended that there could be a 
common understanding about words applied to them. The task of 
language— that is to say, the need and the endeavour of speaking 
man — was therefore to make clear, by means of analogy with 
and reference to spatial relations, the non-spatial relation in which 
ideas appeared.^' ^ 

4. If, then, the first set of ideas into which man penetrates 
derives its elements from external nature, how is it that we ever 
come to distinguish between our own self and the things outside 
of us? 

The beginning of conscious life is to be placed probably before 
birth. It is true that as yet the tender organism is divided off from 
the great outer world ; some of the most important sensuous 
impressions (sight, hearing, and smell) are rendered possible only 
through birth ; and those sensations which are possible (taste, and 
sensations of touch and movement) are no doubt only faintly and 
dimly distinguished from the general feeling of vegetative comfort 
and discomfort. Still the experiences undergone before birth 
perhaps suffice to form the foundation of the consciousness of an 
external world. The feeling of comfort or discomfort, together 
with the sensations of movement, may even at this stage offer 
a certain contrast to the sensations of resistance, contact, and 
taste. It follows as a matter of course that this first germ of a 
world-consciousness is dim and dreamlike, and that we, from our 
waking, fully conscious standpoint, are easily tempted to attribute 
too much to it. But these first stirrings must be taken into account, 
especially as they serve to indicate the difficulty of fixing on a 
definite point as the point of transition from unconscious to conscious 
existence. To Erasmus Darwin and Cabanis belongs the credit 
of having shown the significance of this first period of mental life. 

The revolution effected by birth probably consists, not in a 
quickening, but in a great alteration of the relations of life, 
internal as well as external. Organic sensations (sensations of 
what passes within the organism) and the vital-feeling or general 

1 J. N. Madvig, Sprogvidenskabelige S trobejitcifkninger ("Observations on the 
Science of Language"), Copenhagen, 1871 {U}tiversitdtsp7'ogra77tin), p. 9. Leibniz has 
brought this out very prominently. Noicveaux Essaisy iii. i, 5 (Opera, ed. Erdmann, 
p. 298). 

Jb 2 



4 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [i 

feeling of life (the pleasure or pain accompanying organic sensation) 
are changed by the fact that nourishment and breath no longer 
stream in immediately from the maternal organism, with which the 
foetus shared a common life, but have to be taken in from without 
and appropriated by special organs (alimentary canal and lungs). 
In addition to the fact that internal functions thus acquire greater 
energy and independence, stronger pulsations of organic sensation 
are brought about by the same cause, for the previously continuous 
influx now becomes periodic and interrupted, so that the contrast 
between feelings of pleasure and pain becomes more intense. At 
the same time impressions from the greater outer world rush in 
upon the tender organism, which must be especially susceptible to 
impressions of cold. The cry of pain, with which the new-born 
infant begins life, finds its most probable explanation partly in the 
difficulty of breathing produced by the separation from the maternal 
organism, partly in sensations of cold.^ 

Although at first organic sensation continues to play the greatest 
part, yet such a variety of impressions gradually streams in upon 
the young consciousness that a more definite contrast between a 
subjective and an objective pole becomes possible. Just as feelings 
of pleasure and pain, organic sensation, and the sensation of 
movement appear in a more energetic form by reason of the 
greater contrast with the external world, so the influences received 
from that world are now more definite and stronger. The im- 
pressions of light and sound render possible a discrimination and 
an acquaintance with the surroundings, which far surpasses in 
delicacy that produced by mere sensations of touch and movement. 
The resistance offered by the hard-and-fast world to the movements 
of the child is much more powerful than that which its movements 
met with in the soft and fluid surroundings in the maternal organism. 
Finally, a set of memories and ideas is now formed, which is soon 
contrasted with sensations and percepts. 

Light affects the new-born infant at an early stage, although in 
this as in other respects individual differences immediately assert 
themselves. The child seems to take pleasure in an excitation of 
light, and tries (even on the second day after birth) to turn towards 
it, in order to retain it. The power of fixing the gaze on definite 
objects is developed from the third week ; the objects most readily 
retained are of course those which are near and catch the 

1 Adolf Kussmaul, Unterstichungen iiher das Seelenlehen des neugehorenen 
Menschen, p. 27 seg. 



I] SUBJECT AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY 5 

eye. Clear, brightly coloured, and moving objects especially 
attract the attention. Memory also now plays a leading part. 
Instead of crying so long as it feels hungry, the child is pacified at 
the sight of preparations for the satisfaction of its wants (in the 
third week), and recognizes its mother (from the third month) as 
the source of this satisfaction, a step assisted by sensations of sound, 
for the child turns its head to the side whence sound comes.^ 
Sensations of light, sound, and touch appear, indeed, as phenomena 
independent of the individual's feelings of pleasure and pain, and 
of his active movement, but do not directly come into conflict 
with them. The sensation of resistance and limitation first does 
this. Such sensations of checked and hampered movement, as 
already noted, are possible even in the foetus state, but they now 
become more varied and powerful. The strong vegetative energy 
finds expression in movements of the limbs, and the child is thus 
led to experiment with things of the outer world. Active experi- 
ment is for the adult also the surest means of making acquaintance 
with his surroundings. The child does not wait for the outer world 
to come to him ; from the beginning he himself grasps at the world 
by involuntary movements, and thus secures the best knowledge as 
to the limit between the world and himself. The not-self begins 
wherever movement meets with resistance, especially if the resist- 
ance causes pain. When memory-images become numerous 
and connected, a third important "moment" is reached, the 
contrast, namely, between the clearer and stronger impressions 
which arise immediately, unexpectedly, and often disconnectedly, 
and the weaker images which are at the disposal of consciousness 
under all circumstances, — the contrast, that is to say, between 
percepts and memories. 

Now the question is, how much is included in the self? The 
limits of the self coincide for a time with the limits of the 
organism. All that takes part in movement and meets with re- 
sistance we reckon as part of self. The limitation can be learned 
only by experience. The child gradually discovers his own 
body. The hands are the first familiar part of his own organism ; 
they are examined especially by means of the lips and the 
tongue, the child sometimes putting his finger in his mouth and 
sucking it even on the first day. Afterwards he learns to fix his gaze 
on the hands, and then a firm association of ideas is speedily formed 
between the muscular sensation accompanying their movement 

1 Kussmaul, pp. 26, 39. Vierordt, Die Physiologic des Kindesalters, pp. 154, 159. 



6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [i 

and the appearance which this movement presents. Later, again, 
the feet are discovered ; this can be done only when the child can 
sit up and see them, or when, lying on his back, he can stretch out 
his legs so as to look at and catch hold of them. The great interest 
which a child takes in his limbs and movements may be due to 
the wonderful circumstance that here is something which can be 
seen and grasped, and offers resistance, and yet shares in active 
movement. It is an object, which nevertheless pertains to the 
subject. The experience of the child is here the same as that of the 
dog running after its own tail. The fact that a child, even towards 
the end of his second year, will offer his foot a biscuit, shows that 
he still looks upon it as an independent being. Reciprocal contact 
of the limbs, and resistance of one to movements of others, gradually 
give precision to the idea of his own body as something related to, 
yet in a peculiar way different from, other objects. This idea 
becomes most clear when the child gives himself pain by treating 
parts of his organism as purely objective. 

A further step is now possible ; this, however, is taken only at 
a more advanced age, and not by everybody or in all times. The 
body, hitherto separated off from the not-self, has nevertheless 
shown itself to possess essential characteristics in common with 
the not-self; it can be perceived by the senses, and can offer 
resistance. Thus it presents a contrast to the feelings of pleasure 
and pain, and to the inner stream of memories and ideas. 
That through which we feel pleasure and pain we may perhaps 
perceive by means of the senses, but not thefeeliiig itself. That 
which we remember and represent to ourselves may be an object of 
outer perception, but not so the remembrance and the idea them- 
selves. This contrast is so decisive that the idea of the body may 
be transferred to the objective pole, to the not-self, and then there 
remains to us only the idea of self as the subject of thought, 
feeling, and will. The contrast between the inner and the outer 
now becomes more acute, or rather, we retain the expression 
" inner " as a figurative designation of the mental province in con- 
trast with the material as the "outer." Inner experience, then, 
relates to thoughts, ideas, and feelings, as mental conditions ; outer 
experience, to what is capable of being seen, and can resist move- 
ment in space. 

5. The psychology of primitive races teaches that the idea of the 
mental has passed through the same stages in the history of the 
human race as in the individual. The ordinary mythological theory 



I] SUBJECT AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY 7 

attributes to primitive man a tendency to conceive and explain all 
natural phenomena by everywhere introducing his own conscious life. 
"To explain " means simply to trace the unknown back to the known, 
and whence (so argues this theory) should man originally derive the 
elements for the explanation of natural phenomena, if not from 
himself? This much is certain, that the mythological conception 
of nature is distinguished from the scientific by its tendency to 
personify. But may not this tendency itself require explanation, 
and may it not be asked whether there are not necessary inter- 
mediate links through which the idea of personal powers is trans- 
ferred to natural phenomena ? The theory referred to seems to 
impute to primitive man a creative imagination which is possible 
only at a higher stage of development. And were the theory 
correct, it would necessarily be expected that language would 
denote material things by terms originally applied to mental 
things, whereas in reality it denotes mental things by terms 
originally material. 

Modern investigations relating to the mental life of savage 
races have led, therefore, to a modification, if not to a complete 
rejection, of the theory of an originally personifying faculty. Tylor, 
Lubbock, and Spencer have proved that dream-images play an 
extraordinarily large part in moulding the primitive conception of 
the universe. In dreams a man sees himself and others, and having 
at first no reason for assuming a difference between dream-images 
and percepts, he believes the former to be as real as the percepts of 
waking life. Just as a child delivers greetings from people he has 
dreamt of, so the primitive man takes everything occurring in 
dreams for actual experience. He has therefore been in distant 
places, although it is evident his body has not moved from the 
spot ; and others have visited him, although it is certain that they 
were far away or dead. Besides dream-images, reflections of him- 
self and others confirm the notion of a form of existence other 
than that given with the presence of the body in a definite place. 
A savage who had been made to look into a mirror exclaimed, 
*' I gaze into the world of spirits !^' One of Darwin's children, at 
nine months old, turned to the looking-glass on hearing his name 
called. Such experiences lead to the notion of a double existence : 
as mind, man is a free, ethereal being ; as body, he is tied down to 
definite and limited places in space. Now, this duality forms a 
firm point of support for the imagination. Striking phenomena — 
change, the emergence of things and their vanishing away, life and 



8- OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [i 

death — find now their natural explanation, a like duahty being 
assumed to exist in everything. The spirits of the dead especially 
serve as an important element of explanation ; with them dreams 
and imagination are chiefly occupied, and there is consequently a 
disposition to find their intervention everywhere. All natule is 
peopled from the world of dreams. I 

But it would certainly be going too far to suppose that we can 
dispense altogether with the assumption of a personifying tendei^cy. 
It is one thing to find the mere appeal to such a tendency not 
enough ; quite another to dispense with it entirely. A man must at 
any rate recognize his own person in dreams, and ascribe to the 
images of other men shown in dreams a life of feeling and vrill 
corresponding to his own. If we wholly reject the personifyihg 
tendency, it is impossible to explain how man can assume at all the 
existence of other personal beings besides himself. The dream- 
theory marks an advance so far, that it makes the fact that man 
attributes his own mental life to his " double" easily intelligible ; in 
this case he immediately recognizes himself in other relations. 
But what takes place here differs only in degree from what always 
takes place when he recognizes a mental life in other beings, who 
execute movements such as he would himself make in certain 
moods. His instinct of self-preservation leads him, at an early 
stage, to attach a meaning to the movements of other beings — to 
interpret certain looks and attitudes as signs of certain feelings. 
Such interpretation takes place instinctively and involuntarily, and 
— to judge from the ease with which a little child learns to dis- 
tinguish friendly from threatening countenances — is perhaps based 
upon an innate faculty. Logically formulated, it would be called an 
inference by analogy. To what lengths the analogy is carried 
depends on the standpoint. At the mythological standpoint, man is 
very ready to ascribe to things outside of himself a mental life like 
his own. The boundary between the self and the not-self also, 
is indefinite as with children. Only adv^jicing experience can draw 
more precise lines of demarkation. 

The mind is at this stage conceived as an ethereal being, in 
/ contrast to the body as a coarser and heavier being. This 
duality has to pass through many phases before it is developed 
into the contrast between an immaterial and a material being. 
The physical characteristics of the conception of mind are only 
slowly and by degrees worn off. In the mental development of 
the Greeks such a refining process occurred in the period between 



I] SUBJECT AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY 9 

Homer and Plato. For Homer, the mind is only a fainter copy, 
a reflection of the body ; a man^s real self, according to his 
childhke mode of conception, is destroyed with the body, and 
he thus makes the souls of his heroes descend into the under- 
world while they the7nselves are a prey for dogs and birds ! 
{Iliad, I. 3, 4.) Plato, on the contrary, makes Socrates, on Crito 
asking " how he would be buried,'' address his friends as follows : 
"I cannot persuade this Crito that I am the Socrates who is 
conversing with you and presiding over the argument. He 
thinks that I am the body which he will soon see a corpse, 
and he asks how he shall bury me.'' {Phcedo, tr. by F. J. Church, 
p. 186.) Here is expressed a purely spiritual conception of the 
mind, its essence being represented as activity of thought. 
This pure conception— which the ancient philosophers did not 
work out — was again obscured in the Middle Ages, when faith 
bore a distinctly materialistic impress ; e.g. it represented souls 
as burning in purgatory. In modern times, Descartes, who 
found the essence of the mind in consciousness, stands in the 
same relation to the conception of the Middle Ages as that in 
which Plato stood to Homer. Were we to explain, by the way of 
psychological analysis, this transition from the standpoint of Homer 
to that of Plato, we should come back to a process similar to that 
described above as taking place within the individual consciousness 
(p. 5 seq). 

6. That we directly know mental life only in ourselves, and discover 
it outside of us by way of analogy, we may finally convince our- 
selves by taking a physiological standpoint. While organic processes 
and movements were explained through a special vital force or 
through the unconscious activity of the mind, mental life could of 
course be extended to all organic phenomena. But even then 
there remained the question of the relation between the " soul '' in 
the wider sense, as vital force, and the soul in the narrower sense, 
as consciousness. Descartes was the first to lay down with pre- 
cision the purely psychological criterion of mental life, in opposition 
to the older Aristotelian conception, which applied the word " soul'' 
even to the principle of nutrition. He preferred to avoid the word 
" soul " {anima) on account of its ambiguity, and substituted the 
word " consciousness " {mens) when he wished to denote the subject 
of psychology. The realm of souls was thus greatly narrowed. 
Descartes himself found only in man occasion for the assumption 
of a consciousness ; animals he regarded as mere machines. This 



10 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [i 

was a paradox, but indicates a reform in the conception of nature. 
Instead of appealing to forces that work mysteriously, we can now, 
since " soul ^' has been severed from the material world, introduce 
a purely mechanical explanation of nature. 

Modern physiology interprets the phenomena of organic life by 
means of physical and chemical laws. It is in this way that all the 
explanations which it has as yet succeeded in giving, have been 
reached. Physiology has for this reason been called organic 
physics.^ While acknowledging the mysterious in the origin and 
development of life, it knows no way in which the problem can be 
solved except the reduction of organic phenomena to physical and 
chemical processes. An appeal to the "vital force," or to the 
intervention of the mind, it does not recognize as a scientific 
explanation of an organic phenomenon ; it sees in that only 
a confession of our ignorance regarding the nature of the 
phenomenon. 

Physiology does not of course deny the existence of mental life, 
in the sense of a conscious life. It inquires in each individual 
case whether the material movements which we see before us 
justify us in assuming that consciousness is associated with them. 
The answer depends partly on whether the movements are so 
purposive that we must suppose them carried out with delibera- 
tion, partly on whether they are such as we ourselves make 
on experiencing pleasure or pain. In both respects we often 
interpret too freely. Purposive movements may be executed quite 
unconsciously by means either of an innate mechanism or of a 
mechanism produced by practice. They are then mere '* reflex 
movements " — that is to say, movements springing from the fact that 
an excitation brought to a central organ by an afferent nerve is 
immediately sent back by the central organ (" reflected") through an 
efferent nerve. Among such involuntary and unconscious move- 
ments must be placed those which a frog, after it has been 
deprived of its head, executes in order to get rid of a corrosive 
acid or of some restraint, although from the purposive character of 
these movements some have assumed the existence of a " spinal 
mind" in the headless animal. Even in so-called " instinctive 
actions " it is often difficult to determine the extent to which there 
is conscious deliberation. As regards the feeling of pleasure or 
pain, physiology, holding that a parallel may be shown between 

1 Panum, Indledning til Physiologien {'''' Introduction to Physiology "), Copenhagen, 
1883, p. 7. 



I] SUBJECT AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY ii 

the degree of the development of consciousness and that of the 
nervous system, maintains with regard to animals of lower 
organization {Radiata, Mollusca, Articulatd) " that by no kind of 
injury do they feel such pain or torture as man can feel, and such 
as deserves the pity of man " ; that the pain which fish and reptiles 
are capable of feeling is extremely small, about as much " as that 
produced in men by the sting of a flea or a gnat " ; further, that 
even the pain of birds may not be compared to that of man under 
similar injuries.^ To conclude terrible sufferings from the con- 
vulsions and the death-rattle of the dying is often a mistake. 
When death comes slowly, the pain is over before the death- 
struggle begins, and the convulsions are often only reflex move- 
ments, which take place after the circulation of the blood is 
checked and the activity of the brain has ceased.^ On the other 
hand, to an ignorant bystander death by poisoning from curare 
appears quite painless, for there no convulsion or death-rattle 
takes place. But this poison attacks first only the organs con- 
necting the motor nerves and the muscles, and thus prevents any 
indication of feeling during the interval that elapses before the 
poison has arrested all the functions of life. Thus there may be 
the most frightful death-anguish without external token of it. 
Claude Bernard^ makes use of this very example to emphasize the 
fact that we know with complete certainty the capacity for feeling 
(sensibility) only from our own consciousness, and that we are 
easily led astray when we try to determine whether such a capacity 
exists in other beings or not. 

If we wish, then, to gain a knowledge of conscious life, we must 
study it, above all, where it is directly accessible to us — namely, in 
our own consciousness. This immediate experience is also the only 
source whence the physiologist can determine the significance for 
mental life of the various organs of the brain. It is the secure 
starting-point for all our knowledge of the mental world. 

7. But now how much is contained in this starting-point ? The 
subject-matter of psychology is not something that can be pre- 
sented to the imagination or to sensuous perception. It is not 
something that we can directly find outside ourselves, but some- 
thing which we transfer, consciously or unconsciously, whenever 
occasion offers, from ourselves to others. More than that which 

1 Panum, Indlcdningi^^ Introduction "), p. 56. 

2 E. Hornemann, Om Menneskets Pilstaiid kort for Doden (" On the Condition of 
Man just before Death "), Copenhagen, 1874, p. 18. 

3 Claude Bernard, " Le Curare," La Science ex;peri77tentalcy Paris, 1878. 



12 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [i 

inner observation of our own consciousness teaches us we are not 
therefore justified in using as a basis. Here, however, there is 
something the reality of which cannot be disputed. No one can 
deny that there are sensations and ideas, feelings and decisions ; 
and in saying that psychology is the science of mind, we 
mean by mind, to begin with, nothing more than the sum of all 
these inner experiences. In this sense the existence of the mind 
is not open to doubt, but, on the contrary, is a necessary assump- 
tion. There is, however, another sense in which the question as to 
the position of science with regard to the existence of the mind 
may be raised. Not content with the simple starting-point of 
psychological experience, spiritualism has thought it necessary to 
base psychology on the idea of the mind as an independent, self- 
existent, individual being (a substance). This is an idea which 
points back historically to the mythological duality, as this was 
refined and moulded by considerations partly ethical, partly 
theoretical. On the one side, an influence was exerted by the sense 
of the high value of mental life — the feeling that everything that 
interests us dwells in this inner world of thoughts and feelings, 
and that the outer world of matter has value for us only as an object 
of thought and feeling. This inner world was therefore exalted far 
above the material world, and sharply distinguished from it. On 
the other side, the spiritualistic conception is grounded in an 
analysis of the characteristics of mental states. It is peculiar to 
consciousness, to bring together things dispersed in time and 
space. Differences of time are annulled in memory, differences 
of space in comparative and combining thought. There is here a 
thoroughgoing unity, an inner connection, without a parallel. Is 
not this sufficient justification for ascribing to the mind an existence 
in and for itself, and for conceiving it as an immaterial substance ? 
But however great the justification may be, we cannot at any rate 
acknowledge it at the beginning of psychology. Here it is above 
all things important to build upon nothing but immediate percep- 
tion. And this supposition does not even help us to abetter under- 
standing of mental experiences. From the character of certain 
experiences the existence of a mental substance is deduced, but 
about this substance only so much is known as is contained in 
these experiences ; so far as more knowledge is sought, the 
validity of the deduction ceases. Experience does, indeed, teach 
that the special characteristic of consciousness, in contrast with 
material phenomena, is the inner unity of the variety of all 



I] SUBJECT AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY 13 

conscious-content, a unity which does not exist in the world of 
space ; but it does not teach that this unity is absolute, uncondi- 
tioned and independent. Taking substance in its strict sense, as 
that which has self-existence, and neither results from nor depends 
upon anything else, we have no experiential right to apply the 
term to mind. This is clearly recognized by Hermann Lotze, in 
modern times the most able advocate of spiritualistic physiology. 
In attributing substantiality to the mind, he means only to describe 
the mind as an independent element in the world, as a centre of action 
and endurance, without asserting anything as to its absolute nature. 
Hence also he declares that, from the existence of the mind as 
substance in this sense, no further conclusions of a semi-religious, 
semi-philosophical nature — such as those held by the earlier 
spiritualists — can be drawn ; it opens no way to a knowledge of 
the fate of the mind, of its prospects in the future, or of its origin. 
He even agrees with Spinoza in thinking that, if the notion of sub- 
stance is to be taken in its strictest sense, there can be only one 
substance ; for only an infinite being, which has nothing beyond 
to condition it, can be " self-subsisting.^' A finite being is always 
limited by something else and dependent ; and unless the extent of 
this dependence can be determined a priori^ the definition of the 
mind as " substance " is not only misleading, but also useless and 
unfruitful. 

What Lotze has especially in view in describing the mind as 
substance in the sense of an independent centre and point of de- 
parture, is its relation to materiality. According to his view, the 
chief characteristics of the mental nature should clearly show that 
this, in and for itself, is something diiTerent from materiality, and that 
a relation of interaction between mind and body must be assumed, 
however the relation may be conceived in detail. Here again, how- 
ever, more is assumed than experience at first justifies. From 
immediate experience of our inner states absolutely nothing can be 
gathered as to their relation to other sides of being. Psychological 
experience gives only the internal mental phenomena themselves — 
not the manner in which they are connected with other phenomena. 
This is a special question, which psychology cannot in a one-sided 
way and directly determine. Other series of experiences besides 
the psychological must be brought to the solution of this problem ; 
and it is of great importance that, as regards each individual series, 
no unjustified ideas shall be introduced — ideas which might pre- 
judice the decision in one direction or another. We cannot 



14 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [i 

determine at the beginning whether two different principles or 
substances are at the root of the mental and of the material. We 
see before us two provinces of experience, each with its special 
characteristics, and study these in order afterwards — but always 
under the guidance of experience — to try to determine their mutual 
relation. 

This is also to the interest, as rightly understood, of metaphysical 
speculation itself. The human spirit will never let itself be debarred 
from brooding over the ultimate principles of that universal system 
of which it is a member. It will always seek to build its view of 
the universe on certain highest definitive ideas. But what it must 
learn, and should have already learnt, is this — that speculation may 
not mix itself up with the every-day affairs of experiential knowledge, 
may not anticipate the solution of purely experiential problems. 
It is not meant that speculation should wait until experience is 
exhausted ; for that it never will be. But the really wise meta- 
physician is he who lets his ideas move in the direction already 
indicated by the leading features of experiential knowledge. He 
thus expresses only the thoughts which, more or less unconsciously, 
lie at the basis of experientially determined research, and carries 
them to their legitimate conclusions. He seeks an ultimate, 
definitive hypothesis, but the foundation is common to him and to 
the empiricist. Metaphysics therefore presupposes psychology as 
well as the other experiential sciences, and Lotze's conception of 
psychology as applied metaphysics will prove more and more 
untenable. 

Psychology as here conceived is so far a "psychology with- 
out mind " that it makes no assertion about the absolute nature of 
mental life, or even about the question whether such an absolute 
nature exists. Just as little as physics pronounces upon transcen- 
dental questions (questions beyond the limits of experiential 
knowledge) in the province of outer nature, does psychology pro- 
nounce upon them in the province of inner nature. This does not 
mean that psychology may not make an essential contribution to 
the general conception of the universe. Nothing, on the contrary, 
can be of greater importance for such a conception than a know- 
ledge of mental phenomena, of their mutual relations, and of the 
laws of their development. And precisely a conception of these 
phenomena, framed in accordance with experience, will be able to 
clear the points of view and to correct many prejudices. 

In maintaining the empirical character of psychology as contrasted 



I] SUBJECT AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY 15 

with metaphysical speculation, we exclude from psychology material- 
ism as well as spiritualism. We have referred especially to the 
spiritualistic psychology, because it is of greatest interest, and has 
the most acute supporters. But it is obvious that materialism makes 
the same encroachments as spiritualism. Materialism also infers 
the existence of a substance, which is supposed to He hidden behind 
the phenomena of consciousness, but finds this substance in matter, 
not in a spiritual principle. Spiritualism takes its stand on the 
difference between mental life and material phenomena, and thence 
infers a special mental substance, which' in itself has nothing to 
do with matter. Materialism, on the other hand, argues from the 
connection of mental life with material, that the mind must be a 
material being. "It is enough for us to know,'' says Holbach 
{Systhne de la Nature^!, p. 118), '^that the mind is moved and 
modified by material causes acting upon it. We are justified in 
concluding from this that it must be material." Broussais defined 
the mind as "un cerveau agissant, et riendeplus" (a brain inaction, 
and nothing more). Both in what it maintains and in what it 
denies, materialism, equally with spiritualism, goes beyond the 
standpoint of experiential psychology. That in the course of the 
investigations proper to psychology a point may be reached 
whence judgment can be pronounced on these hypotheses, is 
quite another matter. 

Psychology in and for itself, then, is not a part of philosophy, if 
by philosophy is meant metaphysics, a search after a general view 
of the universe ; like the experiential science of external nature, 
it is a preparation for philosophy, a part of the foundation on which 
philosophy, in the sense of metaphysical speculation, should build, 
one of the witnesses it should call in. Nor is psychology philosophy, 
if by philosophy we mean a critical science of the nature and limits 
of knowledge : while psychology has purely the character of natural 
history, observes mental phenomena in their development and in 
their mutual relations, the theory of knowledge (sometimes called 
logic) tries by critical analysis to bring out the general principles of 
cognition. The theory of knowledge also, therefore, presupposes 
psychology. 

On the other hand, philosophical thought also becomes one of 
the objects of psychology. As a form of mental activity, philo- 
sophy lies within the sphere of psychological observation. And in 
many ways philosophical research has played into the hands of 
psychological research ; consciously or unconsciously, philosophical 



i6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [i 

speculation always works with psychological elements, and in 
philosophical systems are deposited many profound psychological 
observations and ideas. 

It is the merit of the English school to have shown that psycho- 
logy is independent of metaphysical speculation. Descartes had, 
it is true, taken the decisive step of clearing the notion of mind 
from mythological ambiguities, by laying stress on consciousness as 
the mark of mental phenomena. He did not, however, hold fast 
to the experiential standpoint, but in reality laid the foundation of 
metaphysical spiritualistic psychology by representing the mind as 
"thinking substance" (substantia cogitans)^ instead of keeping to 
the phenomena of consciousness as the secure empirical basis. 
Kant's epoch-making philosophical reform became important for 
psychology through his critique of metaphysical ("rational'^) 
psychology, a critique the weight of which has been shaken only 
momentarily by romantic attempts to restore the old views. 

8. We have tried to exhibit psychological inquiry as distinct in 
aim from the study of external nature and from metaphysical 
speculation. The immediate observation of self and immediate 
consciousness are the source from which both physiologist and 
metaphysician draw, but by them the source is frequently over- 
looked because their real interest is not this immediate observation, 
but that which they think they can deduce from it. Now, supposing 
that it is necessary to draw from this source, the question arises, 
whether independence in respect of subject-matter involves also 
independence in respect of method. This necessitates a closer 
inquiry into the nature and limitation of subjective observation.^ 

{a) The first difficulty presented springs from the fact that 
mental states are not abiding and steady objects like those which 
form the subject-matter of physical observation. As space is 
the special form of material phenomena, so time is the form of 
mental phenomena. What passes within us, in our thoughts and 
feelings, is unstable and changing. The botanist, when he spreads 
out a plant in front of him, or the chemist, when he conveys a 
substance into his retort, can observe at leisure the appearance of 
the objects under certain quite definite conditions. But a state of 
consciousness cannot be isolated in this manner, it has no limits in 

1 For method of psychology may be compared J. S. Mill, System of Logic^ book vi. , 
chap. iv. ; Bain, Logic, ii., pp. 275-292; Ad. Horwicz, " Methodologie der Seelenlehre" 
{Zeitschrift fiir Philosophie und philos. Kritik, 60 Band, 1872) ; Delboeuf, La Psychologie 
comme Science naturelle, Paris, 1876; Wilh. Wundt, Logik, ii., pp. 482-501 ; J. Sully, 
Illusions, chap. viii. [For standpoint, cf. Ency. Brit. 9th. ed. art. "Psychology" (Tr.)] 



i] SUBJECT AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY 17 

space ; every moment brings in, or may bring in, new elements. 
In the moment when I wish to observe a state of consciousness, 
that state is already past, or has blended with other elements. Now 
it is certain that in one and the same instant several distinct series 
of ideas may pass through our consciousness ; the self is not a unity 
in the sense that it excludes different or even conflicting currents. 
And it might be supposed that while the main current persists — 
as, e.g.^ in the contemplation and admiration of a work of art — an 
under-current might at the same time flow, which would stand in 
the relation of observer to the first. In this way we might admire, 
and at the same time study the psychology of admiration. And 
certainly every one knows from personal experience states of this 
kind, in which, though something quite other than self seems to 
claim the whole attention, yet an inner spectator keeps up a 
running commentary. States of this kind cannot be entirely 
avoided by men in whom reflection has once been roused ; and 
such a dual current may be of importance, particularly in an ethical 
connection, when it is a question of judging and gradually sup- 
pressing a pernicious current of mental life. Criticism as an 
under-current then makes itself heard, as an opposing motive, 
which seeks to overcome that previously dominant. But although 
such dual currents may be fruitful in psychological observation 
also, yet psychology must in its own interest give a caution against 
them. The capital of energy at the disposal of the mental life is 
in such states necessarily divided, and each individual current 
weakened. If a mood is to be thoroughly experienced, the under- 
current must be suppressed, and no heed paid to inner suggestions, 
lest they should withdraw a portion of the available energy. It 
must be added that the observing under-current is not indifferent, 
but always more or less diverts the main current. Conscious 
attention of necessity influences the state to which it is directed, 
and may in consequence partly destroy or change its own object. 
It substitutes art for nature. 

But what cannot be done at the moment of experience may be 
done later. During experience, we should only draw the net 
with all its contents to land, or, to use the simile of the botanist, 
collect the plants casually met with. What has been fully and 
clearly experienced will remain in the memory, and by means of 
the memory can be examined. The rhythmical alternation of self- 
forgetfulness and self-consciousness makes psychological self-exami- 
nation possible, and psychological talent depends on the ease and 

C 



i8 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [i 

elasticity with which it is possible to pass from one of these states 
to the other — in such a way as to keep clear and distinct in the 
moments of remembrance and reflection what has been immediately 
experienced, but not on the other hand to allow the immediate 
feelings to be disturbed by reflection. And yet the two states do 
not remain wholly unaffected by one another. Unconsciously — and 
therefore without detriment — the exercise of memory and reflection 
will cause a stronger light or a greater emphasis to fall on those ele- 
ments in the immediate experience which are of especial psycho- 
logical interest. We can make ourselves mental botanists, carefully 
preserving what is of interest for our psychological observation 
and our psychological understanding, while quickly passing over 
what has no such significance. 

{b) But now, even if we succeed in overcoming this difliculty, a 
new one arises — namely, that on account of the individual difler- 
ences in observers, there is no guarantee that they really see one 
and the same thing. Here they have not the object outside of them- 
selves and among themselves, but each has it in himself ! 

This applies, however, more or less to physical observation also. 
Observation is a subjective activity ; that which every one observes 
exists for him precisely as he observes it, and only by comparison 
can he infer that others observe the same thing (compare, e.g., the 
perception of colours). To show a thing to some one else it is 
necessary to make him see it for himself, to rouse his own observing 
activity. What individual diversities constantly assert themselves 
here, may be seen, for example, in the fact that, when two astro- 
nomical observers calculate the time occupied in the movement of 
a star, there is always a difference, varying according to the ob- 
serving individuals, and depending on the varying rapidity with 
which an impression is received and noted. On this account 
observations are usually begun by determining the "personal 
equation^' in relation to other observers. From this it has been 
found that these individual differences are not constant, but subject 
to oscillations from day to day as well as in the course of years. A 
mutual check of this kind — though naturally in a much more im- 
perfect form — is the only means of raising psychological observa- 
tions above what is merely individual, or rather, of distinguishing be- 
tween what is merely individual and what is of more general validity. 
Discrimination between what is typical and what is not typical 
must begin even within what is individual ; if the individual wants 
to apprehend his own inner nature, he must disregard many ob- 



I] . SUBJECT AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY 19 

servations, because they are isolated, and owe their origin only to 
single transitory situations. A purifying process of this kind every 
one involuntarily undertakes, and daily intercourse with other 
individuals leads, equally involuntarily, to a distinction between 
what in personal observations is general and universal, and what 
is merely individual. Psychological inquiry only continues, in 
both respects, what has been begun without conscious intention. 
But in its critical examination it must look for a support beyond 
the purely subjective method, the limitation of which already 
becomes evident. Even in the thorough checking of individual 
experiences, the purely subjective starting-point is deserted. 
Meanwhile, before we enter more closely into the objective 
psychological method, it is necessary to dwell upon the manner 
in which subjective observations are elaborated. 

{c) Scattered observations form a chaos, which has to be set in 

order. The first piece of work is a classification, by means of 

which definite groups, or kinds, of mental phenomena are formed. 

The individual states are arranged in different classes according to 

their most striking characteristics. Such a classification is not, 

however, so easily made as was for a long time supposed. As 

classification, in the provinces of zoology and botany, led to the 

notion of eternal and unchangeable species — so that it now costs a 

hard struggle to furnish proof that these species are the fruits of 

a natural course of evolution — so psychological research for a long 

time thought its end had been attained when it reduced the various 

inner phenomena to various " faculties " of the mind — a procedure 

which conflicted strangely with the strictly spiritualistic conception 

of the unity of the mind. At the same time these " faculties ^' were 

regarded as causes of the phenomena concerned, and thus the need 

for a causal explanation was satisfied in a very convenient, though 

quite illusory, manner. In particular it was overlooked that in 

classification attention is given only to a prominent characteristic ; 

that it is not therefore actual concrete states themselves which 

are classified, but the elements out of which a closer examination 

shows them to be formed. There is scarcely a single conscious 

state — as will be shown later in detail — which is only idea, only 

feeling, or only will. The psychological divisions may thus be 

very useful for preliminary instruction ; but, if they are to have 

scientific value, they must be based on a thoroughgoing analysis, 

which searches out the individual elements and the laws of their 

connection and interaction. This analysis, which endeavours 

c 2 



20 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [i 

to go back to the constituent parts through combination of which 
our mental states have arisen, may often lead to a conflict with 
that which " the evidence of consciousness " seems immediately 
to include. Observation gives us only matters of fact, and teaches 
us nothing about the manner in which these facts have arisen. 
Direct consciousness in itself does not include any psychological 
theory, any more than it informs us whether it is the sun or the 
earth which moves. Our thoughts and feelings are in the highest 
degree complex mental products, fruits of a long, calm, and for 
the most part unobserved growth. The mere observation and 
description of them, therefore, are of value as a basis only. 

The mental states follow one another, and call one another up. 
Now, can we lay down laws and rules for this interaction, and is it 
possible to show which are the elements in the different states of 
consciousness that lead from the one to the other .^ These are 
the questions with which psychological analysis is occupied. It 
thus proceeds in two directions, which are closely connected ; 
it looks for common features, for that which reappears in the 
individual cases, and in this way lays down general empirical laws 
{e.g. for the association of ideas, the relation between idea and 
feeling, etc.) ; and, taking the individual states, it tries to discover 
the elements out of which each is compounded. A thought, a feel- 
ing, a resolve, is not an absolute unity ; closer investigation shows 
it to be the fruit of a long course of development, during which it 
has received contributions from many sides. Love, conscience, 
and — to take a purely intellectual example — the idea of an external 
object, seem quite complete and self-contained, and yet it appears 
that they have their history, and that they depend on interaction 
between simpler mental elements, brought to light by psychological 
investigation. Analysis proceeds here from the complex to the 
simple, while in the former case it proceeded from individual in- 
stances to the general rule. The one form may be called general- 
izing^ the other elementary^ analysis. But it will be seen that the 
laws of succession and the mode of combination are closely con- 
nected, since the most general laws must be those which hold for 
the most elementary activities, for those mental functions which 
reappear in all mental phenomena. 

It will never be known with complete certainty whether the ex- 
planation is exhaustive, whether we really have before us elements 
which admit of no further reduction. This in itself is a thing 
which holds good, not for psychology alone but for all our know- 



I] SUBJECT AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY 21 

ledge ; the ultimate fact to which we attain with regard to every 
single point is ultimate only for ics. We cannot even tell 
whether advancing development will not lead us further, so that the 
limits of human knowledge may not yet have been reached. The 
point at which the individual student and the individual age stop 
may be passed by later times with richer experience and clearer 
principles. A noteworthy instance of a decisive change of the 
fundamental psychological conception is the predominant im- 
portance attributed, ever since Rousseau, to feeling as contrasted 
with the other sides of mental life ; the elements of feeling having 
been ranged for a long time previously partly under the psychology 
of the idea, partly under that of the will. Irrespective of clearness 
of observation and of analysis, the possibility that the mental life 
of man undergoes slow changes cannot be excluded. 

{d) Purely subjective observation is soon seen to be much too im- 
perfect a means of psychological analysis. The individual con- 
stituents of states of consciousness can be clearly distinguished only 
when it is possible to proceed by way of experiment. Experiment 
differs from observation in this, that it does not wait for the appear- 
ance of certain phenomena, but tries to produce them under 
certain definite conditions which can be easily kept in view. This 
not only makes it easier to isolate individual elements of a phe- 
nomenon, but also, by enabling us to see how a phenomenon varies 
under different circumstances, opens a way to the discovery of its 
cause. It follows from the nature of things that it is chiefly the very 
simplest phenomena of consciousness which can be made the object 
of experimental inquiry. The emergence and mutual interaction 
of sensations, the simplest cases of association of ideas, and the 
time which these and similar elementary phenomena of conscious- 
ness occupy, have of late years been thus experimentally in- 
vestigated. Midway between psychology and physiology a new 
science — psycho-physics or experimental psychology — is coming 
into existence. 

In the departments in which experimental psychology is applied, 
not only can the qualitative analysis (the inquiry as to the con- 
stituents to which a phenomenon of consciousness owes its origin) 
be more precise and sure, but the prospect of a quantitative analysis 
appears to be opened, so that it may be determined in accordance 
with what scale certain phenomena of consciousness increase or 
decrease, and how great a time they take to arise. Psychology 
approaches by these investigations to the exact sciences, from which 



22 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [i 

the non-spatial character of its subject-matter appears so widely 
to separate it. 

The phenomena of consciousness do not arrange themselves, like 
external phenomena, in the form of space. One feeling does not 
lie to the right or the left of another, nor one thought above or 
below another. Different currents may move, as already noted, 
simultaneously in our consciousness ; but we cannot, as with 
simultaneous external phenomena, determine their mutual relation 
by means of mathematical construction. There is wanting to us 
here a form of intuition, which — like space, the common form in 
which material phenomena are presented — might serve as the basis 
of such a construction. In the psychological province, therefore, 
we have nothing that fully corresponds to the general laws of move- 
ment, which comprise the most general principles of all exact 
explanation of nature in physics. 

The phenomena of consciousness have, however, one property 
which affords an opening for the application of mathematics. This 
is their relative strength and distinctness, or, in other words, the 
degree in which they lay claim to the attention. Herbart had 
already found in this property a starting-point for his attempt to 
found a mathematical psychology. Afterwards Fechner tried to 
find a scale for the degree of strength of sensations (and of mental 
phenomena in general) by inquiring how they vary in relation to 
the increase and decrease of the physical stimulus. On his own 
experiments and those of others he based the rule that the increase 
of a sensation depends on the relation between the increase of the 
stimulus and the previously existing stimulus. To this we shall 
return in dealing with sensation (VA). In order to measure the 
mutual relation of sensations we require a unit, and Fechner pro- 
posed as such a sensation of so small a degree of strength that it 
can only just be noticed, or, as Fechner (with a phrase borrowed 
from Herbart) expresses it, that it just rises above the threshold 
of consciousness. 

Fechner is certainly justified in holding that this degree of 
sensation is constant, when the attention is constant. But he 
himself allows that it is different in each of the different departments 
or modalities of sense (sight, hearing, etc.). It appears also to 
vary for the different species (qualities) of sensation within the 
same department (since the power of perceiving a difference in 
illumination is different with red and with blue light), as also 
for the different parts of the same sense-organ (the central 



I] SUBJECT AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY 23 

and peripheral parts of the retina). Even if Fechner's view can 
be maintained in face of the criticism raised against it, it yet 
affords no general unit applicable to the whole of conscious life, 
not even one which is valid for all the most elementary phenomena 
of consciousness. It does not open up the road to a general 
psychical arithmetic. We cannot expect that we shall ever be 
able to establish formulse for the calculation of the activity of 
conscience or of the poetic imagination. But the investigations of 
experimental psychology do not on that account lose their im- 
portance. The results attained are not merely of interest for the 
apprehension and understanding of the phenomena to which they 
directly relate ; but, in consequence of the inner connection 
between the simpler and the more complex phenomena of 
consciousness, experimental psychology, even if it should always 
be limited to certain elementary departments, will be able — 
through the light thrown on these elementary departments — to 
give valuable hints for the investigation of the higher life of 
consciousness. 

{e) The strictly psychological standpoint is confined to the 
phenomena of conscious life. We have emphasized this so 
strongly in order to avoid ambiguity and misunderstanding. We 
know directly just so much of the mental life as we know of the 
phenomena of consciousness. But consciousness is not a closed 
world ; new phenomena are always emerging which, from that 
strictly psychological standpoint, we cannot deduce from anything 
earlier. Every new sensation seems to come into being out of 
nothing. We may be able to trace its changes and effects in con- 
sciousness, but can give no answer to the question how it comes 
there. 

In addition to this, there are other reasons why we seek for 
means of supplying the defects of the strictly psychological stand- 
point. A comparison of our own observations with those of others 
is necessary, as already shown, that the one-sidedness due to 
individual peculiarities may be avoided, and, further, that we may 
make sure how far all the elements co-operating in the given 
psychological phenomenon have been really taken into account. 
Finally, for concrete psychological knowledge it is not enough to 
know the general laws of the connection of the phenomena of 
consciousness ; in practice there appears such a diversity, such 
a jumble of possibilities, that we cannot deduce from the general 
psychological law the direction which the conscious life will take. 



24 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [i 

For every single individual and in every single situation the result 
depends on the natural temperament, on the conditions of life, and 
on the special experiences. 

The strictly psychological standpoint must, therefore, be supple- 
mented by physiological and historical (sociological) inquiries, or, 
as we may say (employing an expression introduced by Herbert 
Spencer), subjective psychology must be supplemented by objective^ 
With reference to what has been brought out previously, it must be 
borne in mind that in the last resort objective psychology always 
rests on an inference by analogy, subjective psychology alone sees 
the phenomena themselves face to face. What we as objective 
psychologists think we discover of mental life outside our own con- 
sciousness, we reproduce in ourselves by means of a sympathy 
closely connected with analogy. But these analogies may afford 
indispensable correctives for our subjective observation. 

Objective psychology comprises physiological and sociological 
psychology. The former is based on the close connection of mental 
life with organic life in general. Every explanation that physiology 
is able to give of the functions of organic life, may be of service, 
from any side whatsoever, to psychological knowledge. What has 
now to be especially emphasized is the way in which conscious 
mental life melts gradually into unconscious organic life. Physiology 
examines just those unconscious functions which precede the 
mental activities and form their constant basis. At the boundary 
line between the conscious and the unconscious, where subjec- 
tive observation casts but faint light, physiology is able by its 
physical method to establish definite relations. At all points there 
is a close interaction between the conscious and the unconscious ; 
it is not only the infant that awakes to consciousness out of the 
night of unconsciousness ; sleep is every day a relative renewal of 
this night ; in instinct, in impulse, and in habit we have forms in 
which the unconscious takes the conscious into its service, and the 
conscious life in its turn reacts on the unconscious by generating 
new habits and impulses. The physiological study of these 
elementary mental phenomena throws light also on the more highly 
developed mental life. Discussion will therefore turn on the ques- 
tion how far and with what alterations the teaching of the phy- 
siology of the nerves and of the senses about elementary mental 
life may be applied to the higher mental life ; in connection with 
which question it must never be forgotten that even the phy- 
siological experimenter and observer, in his exposition of the 



I] SUBJECT AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY 25 

elementary manifestations of mind, argues back to elementary con- 
sciousness from that which is fully developed. The true physiologist 
is not, in his study of the nerves and senses, interested in the states 
of consciousness as such, but in the physical processes with which 
they are associated. To the physiologist psychological experiences 
are only symptoms from which he infers physiological facts. He 
starts from the assumption that for every psychological experience 
there is a corresponding physiological process, which it is important 
to find out, and to explain in accordance with the general principles 
of natural science. For the present it is the more elementary 
phenomena of consciousness which best admit of this explanation, 
but a principle is in this way established which physiological 
psychology is fully justified in employing as the basis of the 
investigation of the higher mental phenomena also. 

When we consider that mental life, as we know it, develops 
only under definite physical and chemical conditions and through 
a series of stages, the lower and higher of which shed a light re- 
ciprocally on one another, it is clear that psychology must be 
regarded — in spite of the independence reserved to it at starting — 
as a branch of general biology. Biology must put forward a 
conception of life applicable to all its stages, from the organic 
process of nutrition in its simplest forms to the most ideal process 
of feeling or thought. The biology of our time seems to be making 
an approach to an all-embracing biological conception of this kind, 
in regarding life in all its forms as an accommodation of the in- 
ternal to the external. Conscious life marks the highest point ot 
the evolution of life, shows us the highest forms under which living 
beings carry on the great struggle with the relations of the universe, 
and in this struggle unfold their nature. To treat psychology 
purely subjectively would be to overlook the great truth that 
everything which stirs in the mind is conditioned by the mind's 
place in the great system of nature. 

Besides the physiology of the nerves and the physiology of the 
senses, the science of mental diseases is also an important aid to 
psychological insight, both by what it teaches about the connection 
between mental and bodily disturbances, and by its investigations 
into the forms and the course of development of the diseased mental 
life. In the latter respect it serves as a transition from physio- 
logical to sociological psychology, which deals with mental life as it 
reveals itself in movement and action, in literature and art. The 
material of sociological or comparative psychology is animal life. 



26 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [i 

child life, savage races, the whole history of man, poetry, and 
biographies. Sociological psychology may thus be divided into 
many branches of study (child psychology, animal psychology, 
the psychology of races, of language, of literature, etc.), all of 
which lead into the great historical system, wathin which the 
individual consciousness develops, just as physiological psycho- 
logy leads over to the physical system, in virtue of which the 
mental life shares in the life of the universe. The thoughts and 
feelings of the individual man at any given time are conditioned 
not merely by his inherited natural organization, but also by the 
atmosphere of historically evolved civilization in which he 
grows up. The physical and historical systems stand in close 
connection. The study of the influence of heredity forms (as from 
another side the study of mental diseases) a connecting link be- 
tween physiological and sociological psychology, especially if we 
extend our view to the great horizon opened for us by the hypo- 
thesis of evolution. Through this hypothesis, organic nature, even 
the whole system of nature with its laws, acquires an historical 
character, as conversely we look at organic forces and laws in their 
influence on the historical development of human nature and of 
the relations of human life. 

(/) We need only glance hastily at all these different sources to 
know that psychology cannot be a sharply defined science. It may 
be pursued by many methods and in many ways ; here we have 
wished to bring out distinctly only the principle of the relation 
between the various ways. Thus there is not one psychology ; there 
are many psychologies. But in consequence of the principle of the 
position occupied by subjective psychology, there will always — in 
spite of the growing importance of objective psychological study — 
be a natural and legitimate endeavour to utilize subjective psycho- 
logy as a basis, and to collect around it as the centre the contribu- 
tions made from other sources. In fact psychology has followed 
this method ever since Aristotle laid the foundation of experiential 
psychology. Only for a time did psychology, guided by a mistaken 
spiritualistic interest, endeavour to make its cause distinct from 
that of physiology and the other objective sciences, with the 
result the re-establishment of the connection came to be regarded 
as a new discovery. Subjective psychology has had to wait for 
objective ; when it had arrived at a thoroughly clear idea as to its 
principle, it soon attained a certain completeness in its broad 
features, before physiological and sociological study was sufficiently 



I] SUBJECT AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY 27 

developed to be able to work seriously into the hands of psychology. 
In this respect it may be said that in our time a turning-point has 
been reached. 

Anyone who studies psychology out of philosophical interest will 
have a special reason for bearing in mind throughout the principle 
of the relation between the different sources of psychological 
knowledge, that the contribution which psychology is capable of 
yielding to our general conception of the universe may not be dis- 
torted. Here, as everywhere, it is important so to spread out for 
observation the content of experience, that what is actually given 
may be sharply distinguished from what is hypothetical, while, on 
the other hand, the common and constant features, the general 
laws, may come clearly and distinctly into view ; for on these, not 
on the gaps which always remain in human knowledge, every 
progressive philosophical inquiry should be based. 

9. Psychology stands, then, at a point where natural science and 
mental science intersect, where the one passes over into the 
other. In its principle is the central point round which the 
currents circle from either side, since all knowledge — being 
based upon human nature and organization — becomes directly or 
indirectly knowledge of mankind. 

Psychology forms the basis on which the ideal mental sciences, 
logic and ethics, build. What is true and good can be determined 
only from the human standpoint, and cannot be understood with- 
out acquaintance with actual human nature. Logic and ethics 
set up ideals of human endeavour in thought and action. But if 
these ideals are to have any value in actuality, they must be rooted 
in it, and must therefore be based on a knowledge of the deepest 
and most general elements and powers of human nature. Logic^ as 
the science of method, studies the special methods of investigation, 
and tries to trace them back to fundamental methods immediately 
arising from the nature of human consciousness ; as the philo- 
sophical science of knowledge, it tries to lay down the general 
principles, and the consequent limits, of human knowledge ; but 
without psychological insight into the development of the life of 
ideas, such an attempt can have no good result. EtJiics tries 
to lay down general principles for the estimation of human 
volition and action, and to find out the direction in which, 
according to these principles, human life should be developed ; but, 
in attempting this, it must always proceed from human nature as 
actually given, and from its possibilities as given by psychological 



28 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [i 

laws. Among these possibilities ethics, after weighing them, 
makes its choice. 

On the other hand, to confound logical and ethical ideals with 
psychological reality leads to the distortion of psychology. 
Psychology is concerned only with what is^ not with what should be. 
Of course, that state of consciousness in which it becomes 
apparent to us that there is something we ought to do comes also 
within the province of psychology ; like every other state of con- 
sciousness, it is here investigated. But psychology makes no 
valuation ; it inquires only into the actual connection, and into 
the manner and the laws of its development, and leaves it to ethics 
to pronounce a judgment on the different states. Psychology regards 
mental phenomena as natural phenomena, and examines all of them 
with the same calmness and impartiality. The fact that psychology 
is independent of ethics was energetically maintained by Spinoza ; ^ 
but it is not yet, by a long way, sufficiently recognized. There is still 
a disposition to regard certain forms of mental life as exempted by 
their sublimity and worth from explanation and analysis. But 
precisely those psychological phenomena which are of the greatest 
ethical value are not simple and uncompounded, since they are the 
crowning point of a long and rich process of development. From 
their value, therefore, it follows that they are the very opposite 
of an exception to general psychological conditions. It is in all 
cases a mistaken notion that to esteem a thing of value and 
to explain it causally are necessarily incompatible and opposed. 
Of course theoretical inquiry may expose illusions ; in each 
individual case it calls for a fresh testing of the justice of the 
valuation ; but, in itself, it may very well be compatible with the 
determination of worth. It is only a blase person, or one under 
the influence of mythological superstition, who supposes that a 
phenomenon loses its value because it is understood. Mean- 
while it must be admitted that the harmony between valuation 
and causal explanation is as yet only coming into existence ; but 
psychology teaches that it must grow by a necessity of nature, 
since knowledge and feeling cannot permanently move in opposite 
directions. 

1 See my work, Spinoza s Liv og Lore (" Spinoza's Life and Teaching "), Copenhagen, 
1877, p. 120 seq. 



II 

MIND AND BODY 

I. In the foregoing investigation it has been established that 
knowledge of the mental and knowledge of the material are de- 
rived from two distinct sources. The question which now arises 
is concerned with the relation between these two different pro- 
vinces of experience. This question does not lead, as here pre- 
sented, to any metaphysical inquiries. We employ the word mind 
only in the sense of consciousness, as a collective term for all our 
inner experiences (sensations, thoughts, feelings, and resolutions), 
and ask what guidance experience affords as to the connection of 
these experiences with those whose content is what moves in 
space. Our standpoint is thus, to begin with, purely e^npirical or 
phenomenal^ not metaphysical or ontological. According to the 
view given in the preceding chapter, the work of metaphysics 
begins only when experience has been thoroughly explored, and 
its tendencies and possibilities have been discussed. 

Here, as everywhere, the popular mode of apprehension is 
distinguished from the scientific in being a corpipound of ex- 
perience and metaphysics. Popular apprehension often fastens, 
with instinctive assurance, on certain prominent experiences ; but 
it explains and circumscribes these experiences under the un- 
conscious influence partly of traditional, partly of undisciplined 
metaphysical ideas. Scientific apprehension, on the other hand, 
endeavours first of all to become acquainted with the sources of 
its assumptions, and to distinguish sharply between experience 
and explanation. Consequently there arise for it difficulties 
and problems which the popular mode of apprehension does 
not feel. 



30 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [n 

So long as the phenomena of consciousness and the material 
phenomena, each set with its special characters and internal 
connection, are neither of them clearly conceived, the problem of 
the relation between mind and body does not, properly speaking, 
exist at all. . If by mind is understood vaguely a moving principle, 
an inner force of things, then there is no occasion to see any kind 
of difficulty ; for such principles and forces can be postulated with 
equal right in any province whatsoever. It is only when the 
notion of mind is definitely limited to conscious life and its facts, 
and when material phenomena, on the other hand, are conceived as 
a self-contained world with its own principles and laws, that the 
difficulty of a connection between the two provinces makes itself 
felt. Thus the problem does not come from a dogmatic and 
absolute distinction of two substances or essences ; we do not 
know at the outset whether the difference is one of essence or not ; 
we know only that there is a difference, and ask what is involved 
in this phenomenal difference, given in experience, and what follows 
from it. In order to answer this question, we shall place side by 
side the main features characteristic of the two provinces of 
experience. 

2. The first great feature of material phenomena is the fact that 
they appear in the form of space ; that directly or indirectly they 
may always be traced back to a movement in space. This dis- 
tinguishes them from states of consciousness, which can be repre- 
sented as spatial only symbolically. This characteristic does not 
in itself contain anything by which the material is sharply defined 
and closed off as a world in itself. For we might conceive these 
spatial movements as brought about by something non-spatial. 
The material world would in that case lie open to influences from 
without. 

But scientific research makes such a possibility always more 
inadmissible. It now applies in all departments the principle that 
every material movement must be explained by another material 
movement. 

The very first principle on which exact natural science is based 
is, that the state of a material point (rest or movement in a straight 
line) can be altered only through the influence of another material 
point. Physics marks off its special province by this principle 
(the law of inertia), having found that it can attain to a scientific 
knowledge of nature only by employing this law as basis. If 
there were in a material point a capricious force, which might at 



Ii] MIND AND BODY 31 

any moment move it in this or in that direction, or leave it at 
rest or set it in motion indifferently, natural science would be 
impossible. 

This principle cannot, from its nature, admit of rigid proof. It 
is the fundamental assumption with which natural science comes 
into existence ; wherefore it was laid down by Galileo, the founder 
of physics. It cannot be deduced, as has been sometimes 
attempted, from the universal principle of causality. For a 
material phenomenon, a material movement, so far as its nature is 
concerned, might very well have a cause, without this being 
necessarily a material cause : the universal principle of causality 
may be satisfied in many different ways. But it is a matter of fact 
that physical science as hitherto developed has been made possible 
only through the closer determination and limitation which the 
law of inertia gives to the principle of causality in the province of 
material nature. Nor can the law of inertia be fully established 
by experience ; it does not, as some have supposed, express a 
" fact." It can only be proved that the more a body is preserved 
from external influence, the more it remains in the state (rest or 
movement in a straight line) in which it already is. The first 
proposition of dynamics can therefore be only approximately 
established in experience. Its chief importance is that it sets the 
problem — to trace material phenomena back to other material 
phenomena as their cause. 

The like holds true of a more special principle, which gives its 
character to modern natural science, the principle, namely, of the 
conservation of matter and energy. Modern chemistry is based on 
the assumption, confirmed by numerous experiments, that, in all 
changes of matter, the sum of material particles (atoms) remains 
the same. When bodies acquire new properties, this is to be 
explained by the changed combination and disposition of the 
parts. By the emergence and disappearance of a material object 
is meant the composition or separation of atoms which existed 
previously, but in other combinations. Chemistry, in explaining in 
this way all changes of matter by the different movements of 
atoms, applies in its particular department the principle that 
material phenomena must be explained by other material pheno- 
mena. And as matter is assumed to persist through all changes, 
so the sum of the energy {i.e. capacity for work, for overcoming 
resistance) manifested in material nature, is assumed to remain 
the same. If energy appears to come into existence or to be lost, 



%i OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

this is an appearance only. Some examples will throw light on 
the meaning of this principle. 

Through chemical combination heat may arise. But the precise 
amount of heat which arises through the combination disappears 
when the combination is broken up. Now, whence does this heat 
come, and whither does it go ? It arises as the equivalent of that 
elastic force which held the parts asunder before their combina- 
tion, and it recovers its equivalent through the tension with which, 
after separation, the parts are kept away from one another. The 
force with which a stone falls to the ground depends on the height 
from which it falls ; but the height depends in its turn on the 
force with which the stone has been raised. When the stone is 
stopped by the earth, force seems to be lost, for the stone certainly 
cannot set the earth in motion ; but in this case again the loss of 
force means only its translation into another form — into heat. 
This is what happens, too, when a movement is not altogether 
stopped, but only checked by friction. The force which a body 
loses through friction is not really lost, but turned into heat. When 
water dashes against a mill-wheel, heat is produced. Conversely 
heat can produce mechanical movement, as when the steam 
expanded by heat drives the piston, which in its turn sets in 
motion the wheel of the locomotive. And it has been proved by 
repeated and uniformly successful experiments, that the amount 
of force or energy ^ lost under the one form obtains its exact equi- 
valent under the other form, so that the same amount of the same 
kind of energy can be restored. 

However much the different forms of energy taken individually 
may change, their sum therefore remains the same. But by energy 
in that case we must understand not merely actual performance of 
work (living force, actual energy), but also possible performance of 
work (tension, potential energy), the work stored up, which under 
certain conditions can be set free and appHed. When Sisyphus 
succeeds in rolling his stone up the mountain, he really accom- 
plishes something : his work is not lost, for the stone represents a 
greater amount of energy at the top of the mountain than when 
lying at the foot. In both cases it is at rest ; but the potential 
energy is greater in the former case than *in the latter, as becomes 
evident so soon as the stone is put in motion. The misfortune of 

1 On account of the ambiguity of the term force, that of energy is usually employed, 
nothing more being meant by it than the capacity to perform work or to overcome 
resistance. 



II] MIND AND BODY 33 

Sisyphus consists only in his not being able to direct the greater 
potential energy to something useful to himself or to other men ; 
he is always obliged to begin again from the beginning. It is 
therefore the sum of the actual and potential energy which — so far 
as we can regard the universe as a self-contained whole — remains 
always the same. 

The doctrine of the conservation of matter and of energy may be 
formulated either as a law, as a hypothesis, or as a principle. It 
has been experimentally demonstrated in respect of so many kinds 
of matter and force, that it may justly be styled a law of nature. 
The question is whether it holds for all kinds of matter and force, 
and from this point of view — as a universal law of nature — it has 
only hypothetical validity. It can never be more than approxi- 
mately established by experience, since the whole content of nature 
will probably never be known to us. To which must be added, 
that we do not know any absolutely isolated and self-contained 
totahties ; and only for such totalities can the doctrine hold good 
in its strictest sense, since beings or systems related to other beings 
or systems give off energy to these or receive energy from them. 
All that we can show is, that the more a material system can be 
shut off and isolated, the more will its matter and energy continue 
to persist. As regards the extent to which this doctrine admits 
of experimental proof, it resembles the law of inertia. Like 
the latter, it has the great importance of being a methodical 
principle, which impels us to seek equivalents for every portion 
of matter or of energy that seems to come into existence or to 
disappear. 

3. One class of beings, however, not only popular apprehen- 
sion, but for a long time science also, was disposed to regard as 
exceptions to this general doctrine. Organisms, with their special 
forms of development, their power of self-preservation in face of an 
external world, seem to be little worlds capable of drawing life 
from sources within themselves. For a long time any explanation 
of the phenomena of organic life by means of the general forces of 
nature was regarded as materialism. As, however, on the other 
hand, it was clear that the conscious mind is not the direct cause of 
organic processes, which so often take a direction quite contrary to 
the will of the individual, a so-called vital force was interpolated 
between the conscious mind and the body, to explain those 
phenomena. This conception, the doctrine of so-called Vitalism, 
could not of course fail to note that living beings stand in a rela- 

D 



34 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

tion of constant and complicated interaction with the external 
world, are every instant being influenced and giving off influences, 
and that the course of their development and dissolution is con- 
ditioned throughout by this relation. The " vital force '^ had there- 
fore to go through a similar process. But what led Vitalism astray 
was the special manner in which the organism responds to all 
external influences. That a ball rolls when we push it, seems to us 
quite natural ; but that plants turn to the light, that nutriment 
is converted into flesh and blood, or that the fingers contract when 
the palm of the hand is lightly touched, appears to us very extra- 
ordinary, for in these cases the response appears to stand in no 
relation to what has called it forth. Vitalism here makes the mistake 
of regarding the organism as an absolute unity, while it is in reality 
an extraordinarily complex whole. An influence, when received, 
is transmitted from part to part in this whole, and thus gradually 
undergoes a complete change of aspect. It is converted partly into 
other forms of energy, partly into potential energy or tension, and 
finally serves partly to set free potential energy in the organism. 
Research, in endeavouring to trace these changes step by step, 
begins to understand them, and to see that the ultimate result may 
be something totally different from what was taken into the 
organism in the first instance. It perceives that the organism, by 
means of the store of potential energy collected in its tissues and 
circulating in its humours — which form as it were an external world 
within the organism (a milieu interieur^ to use Claude Bernard's 
pertinent expression) — must confront the external world with an 
independence quite other than that of the inorganic forms of 
existence. Organic response to the appeal of the outward world 
(irritability) must be the richer and more special in character, the 
more stored-up energy there is to be set free. The doctrine of the 
" vital force '' is really only a mythological way of expressing the 
amazement which the unique character of organic phenomena ex- 
cited. Modern physiology has been led to a higher point of view 
by analysis of the individual factors in the vital process. The idea 
of the one indivisible vital force came in this way to give place to 
the conception of an exceedingly complicated interaction, in which 
individual manifestations of force may be traced back to general 
forces of nature, and individual material particles to general 
elementary matter. This is the principle with which physiology 
now works, and to which therefore we also must adhere in the 
present inquiries, even though no one may maintain that it is, or 



II] MIND AND BODY 35 

perhaps ever can be, carried out everywhere. The important point 
is, that to it are due all the advances physiology has made. How- 
ever many difficulties remain, especially in the province of morpho- 
logy, no explanation which contradicts this principle will for the 
future be accepted. In any case the burden of proof rests on those 
who appeal to the intervention of immaterial causes.^ 

For everything that arises or disappears in the organism, physi- 
cal or chemical equivalents must be looked for, either within the 
organism or outside it. Organic life is thus drawn into the great 
system of nature. Under the influence of light the conversion of 
inorganic matter into more complex organic matter takes place, 
more particularly in the green cells of plants.- The organic matter 
thus collected is used up in the functions of the plant and the 
animal. Metabolism depends on the conservation of energy, 
and on metabolism in its turn depends the activity of organic 
beings. The form and the manner in which the accumulated 
potential energy is applied depends on the structure of the 
organism. There is a fund of energy in every organic cell, but 
the use made of this fund depends on the structure of the 
organs. 

Thus the principle of the conservation of energy presses its claims 
ever more closely. Vegetative life, the functions of alimentation, 
might perhaps be yielded to it with a good grace. But even the 
nervous and muscular systems cannot escape subordination to it. 
The energy consumed in all nervous and muscular activity is 
stored up during the process of alimentation. The nervous and 
muscular systems themselves are only highly perfected (differen- 
tiated) apparatus for the exercise of functions which are carried on 
in an extraordinarily simple form even in uniform, structureless 
protoplasm. Even here an excitation at one point of the organism 
can be transmitted through the mass, and can set up movement at 
quite different points or in the whole. The increasing division of 
labour makes distinct systems necessary in the higher organisms, 
but this more elaborate formation (differentiation) is not exempted 

1 Cf. Panum, Tndledning til Physiologien ("Introduction to Physiology "),_ 2nd ed. 
(Copenhagen, 1883); Charles Robin, Anatoinie et Physiologic Celhdaires (Paris, 1873), 
Introduction ; Claude Bernard, Lego7is sicr les Phenomenes de la Vie (Paris, 1878), 
(note especially the following definite statement : " Quelque soit le sujet qu'il etudie, le 
physiologiste ne trouve jamais devant lui que les agents mecaniques, physiques, ou 
chimiques," p. 52) ; Exner, Physiologie der Grosshirnrinde ("Physiology of the Cerebral 
Cortex"), 1879 ; Hermann's Handbuch der Physiologie, ii., 2), pp. iSg-igi.^ 

2 The power of forming organic combinations out of inorganic elements is not wholly 
wanting in the animal organism, although it is in the plant organism that its most favour- 
able conditions are found. Cf. Pfliiger, " Ueber die physiologische Verbrennung " (" On 
Physiological Combustion"), Archiv fur Physiologie, xi. p. 345. 

D 2 



36 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

from the general elementary laws."^ These still hold good, only 
in extraordinarily complex and often impenetrable relations. 
Chemically and physically, the action both of nerves and muscles 
is different during and after function from what it is before function. 
The blood that circulates in muscles when in action, contains 
several per cent, less oxygen and more carbonic acid than the blood 
in quiescent muscles. The nervous tissue — the fibres as well as the 
central organs — cannot function without an ample supply of blood, 
which contains the material necessary to the increased change of 
matter that results from function. The brain is affected by every 
change in the circulation of the blood ; both anaemia and hyper- 
emia cause a disturbance in its activity. Brain-work uses up the 
organic capital just as much as the activity of any other organ. 

What really takes place in the nervous system during its activity 
has not yet been made clear. This only is clear, that it can be 
nothing material that is transmitted from one end to the other 
(such as the so-called " animal spirits,'' formerly believed in). 
Probably the nervous process consists in a change passing through 
the nerve fibres, a release of tension, caused by external excitation 
(the irritant), and transmitted from part to part, so that one nerve- 
element serves as irritant in relation to another. The tensions 
thus set free seem to be of a chemical nature ; but there are 
various difficulties in the way of a purely chemical theory of the 
nerves.^ 

4. (a) The plant uses up its energies wholly in the life of nutri- 
tion. It absorbs and secretes matter, grows and propagates. It 
finds what is required for this in its immediate proximity, and must 
so find it in order to live. Air, water, light, &c., must bathe the 
surfaces of the plant, if it is to keep alive. 

The plant is like a foetus, it remains in the maternal bosom of 
nature, and has not made its way out to independent, individual 
life. The foetus obtains its sustenance directly from the maternal 

^ 1 "The nerves are to be regarded in the first instance merely as those points in the 
tissue through which the effect of the excitation is most easily transmitted, W^ithout its 
being necessary for us to suppose that there are from the beginning more mysterious forces 
in them than in the other parts. " — Lotze, A llgemeine Physiologie des Korperlichen Lebens 
(Leipzig, 1850), p. 386. It has been thought a proof of this, that the effect of narcotics on the 
nervous tissue differs from their effect on other organic tissue in degree and rapidity only. 
Cf. Laycock, " Further Researches into the B^unctions of the Brain " {The British and 
Fo7'eign Medico-Chirugical Review^ July 1855), p. 185 ; Claude Bernard, Lefons sur les 
Phenomenes de la Vie, p. 289 ; Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology, i. p. 631 
seg. 

'■^ Cf. L. Hermann, Allge7neine Nervenphysiologie, 1879 (Hermann's Handbtich der 
Physiologie, ii., i), pp. 186-193; Panum, Nervevdvets, de kontraktile Vdvs og Nerve- 
systemens Fysiolo^ie ("■ Physiology of the Nerve-Tissue, of the Contractile Tissue, and of 
the Nervous System ") (Copenhagen, 1883), p. 56. 



II] MIND AND BODY 37 

organism. Animal life proper is conditioned by not having every- 
thing thus prepared for it. The animal must search, work, and 
fight in order to satisfy its wants ; it must therefore face the ex- 
ternal world as a whole, must be able to gather together its energy, 
and to apply it in definite directions. At the same time it must be able 
to take into account relations and facts which do not directly affect 
it at the moment. These requisites are supplied by the nervous 
system ; through it the various parts and departments of the organ- 
ism are brought into close mutual relation, so that the organism 
becomes a whole in a stricter sense than can be said of the plant ; 
and the nervous system makes it possible for the relations of the 
external world to determine the movements of the organism, not 
only directly but also indirectly. 

It is true that it has not yet been possible to establish the exist- 
ence of nerves in the lowest animal organisms, while on the other 
hand many plants execute functions similar to those which in the 
higher animals are executed by means of the nervous system; still, 
speaking broadly, the plant and the animal may be described as 
two types of life, the one of which stands only in direct, the other 
both in direct and indirect, inter-relation with its surroundings. 
The higher we come in the scale of animal life, the greater is the 
part played by the nervous system, because the inter-relation with 
the external world extends in ever wider circles, and thus grows 
less and less direct and momentary. 

{d) The simplest form of nervous activity is the so-called reflex 
movement, where an excitation is carried along an afferent 
(centripetal) nerve-fibre to an internal centre (a ganglion), and 
there in its turn frees an impulse which, through an efferent 
(centrifugal) nerve-fibre, sets in motion a muscle or some other 
organ {e.^-. a gland). Here we have the simple schema, which 
seems to be repeated at all stages in the development of the 
nervous system, only in extraordinarily numerous co-ordinate 
and subordinate strata. As a rule, the ganglion not only sends 
outward-going fibres to the organs in which movement is to be ex- 
cited, but inward or upward-going fibres also pass from it to higher 
centres, which in this way receive impulses from several sides — 
impulses which may in part strengthen, in part inhibit, one another. 
The ganglion itself exercises an inhibitory influence on the impulse, 
for, as can be shown by experiment, the course of a nervous process 
is much slower in the brain and spinal cord than in the peripheral 
nerves. This inhibition seems to make it possible that the impulse^ 



38 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

before being transmitted further, may be changed by the influence 
of other impulses. And to this central elaboration of peripheral 
excitations is due the fact that the movement which they set free is 
determined, not merely by local and momentary influences, but 
also to a certain extent by influences from the whole organism. 
The central nervous organs are therefore modifying and combining 
organs. 

We have a very simple example of this relation in the suckers of 
the cuttle-fish. Each sucker on the arm of this animal has its 
own special ganglion, and so can be made to contract and suck 
when an object is brought into contact with it alone. This may happen 
even if the arm is separated from the rest of the animal. There is 
here a nervous function in its simplest form — transmission of the 
excitation to a simple central organ, and in this organ the setting 
free of an impulse towards contraction. But now the ganglia of 
ad the suckers are connected both with each other and with the 
highest centres of the animal (the caruncle), so that, in taking 
hold of an object with the whole arm, the animal may set all the 
suckers in action at once. The single elementary nerve-function 
then takes its place as member of a whole system of functions. 

This relation between subordinate and principal centres can be 
established also in the case of higher animals, though the closer 
connection and interdependence of the organs make it more diffi- 
cult to survey the relations, the higher we ascend in the scale of 
development. The independence of the subordinate centres is 
greater in cold-blooded animals (as for example the frog, which on 
this very account is the frequent subject of physiological experi- 
ments) than in warm-blooded, and among the latter it is greater in 
birds and rabbits than in the ape, and much greater than in man. 
The complete removal of both cerebral hemispheres can be survived 
only by animals in which the cerebrum has not attained any great 
degree of development. The higher forms of mammalia, on the 
contrary, perish quickly when deprived of the entire mass of the 
cerebral hemispheres. 

(c) The vegetative organs are connected by afferent and 
efferent fibres with the spinal cord and brain, and are regu- 
lated from these centres. Nevertheless, there appear to be 
special nerve-centres, of a certain degree of independence, either 
within, or belonging to, some of these vegetative organs. If the 
heart of a frog is cut out, it continues to beat for several hours, 
thus proving its relative independence of higher centres. Experi- 



II] MIND AND BODY 39 

ments (on dogs and rabbits) have shown that the pulse beats 
faster when, through section of the nervus vagus, the heart is 
freed from its connection with the medulla oblongata. In moments 
of violent terror the heart of the rabbit stands still, then beats 
faster than before : after section of the nervus vagus, no influence 
upon the beat of the heart is perceived. The same holds good 
of the intestines. The peristaltic movements may continue, after 
the connection with higher centres is broken.^ 

The spinal cord is an important seat of reflex movements. In a 
headless frog reflex movements in all directions can be set up 
by a sufficiently strong stimulus on any part of the skin. What 
is remarkable in these movements is their co-ordination and 
purposiveness. So far as it has been possible, by section of the 
spinal cord and appHcation of the stimulus below the division, to 
produce reflex movements in mammalia, these have seemed to be 
to a certain extent co-ordinated, but not so purposive as in the case 
of frogs. The spinal cord seems in the higher animals to act more 
and more exclusively as the connecting link between the brain and 
the peripheral parts of the organism.^ 

In the inediilla oblongata are localized a number of centres of 
importance to the continuance of life. These centres can act in- 
dependently of the higher parts of the brain, and can reflexly set 
in motion very complicated mechanisms. This is so, for instance, 
with the respiratory centres, the centre for regulating the nervous 
system of the heart, for the secretion of saliva, for deglutition, and 
for the excretion of urine. ^ 

A frog deprived of the cerebrum, but still retaining the mesen- 
cephalon (the brain-ganglia situated in front of the medulla oblon- 
gata), proves itself still in control of the motor apparatus required for 
independent movements ; but it appears to move only when stirred 
up by a definite sensory excitation. It lacks the power of taking 
the initiative. It has this superiority over the mere spinal frog, that 
it can be moved by slighter excitations, and is consequently not so 
passive. While the spinal frog is of course not susceptible to light, 
and sinks when thrown into the water, the mesencephalon frog 
avoids a very dark shadow, and wnen it is thrown into the water, 
the stimulus given by the movements of the particles of water 

1 M. Foster, Text-book of Physiology (London, 1877), p. 81 ", Eckhard, Physiol, des 
P flchenmarks {Ilerma.nn, ii., 2), p. 71 ; Exner, Physiol, der Grosshiriirinde i^Q.xxiiZXin, 
ii., 2), p. 289. 

^ M. Foster, p. 420. \Cf. Ferrier, Ficnctions of the Brain (2nd ed. 1886), ch. ii. (Tr.)l 

3 [C/ Ferrier, ch. iii. (Tr.)] 



40 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

causes it to swim. But some outer impulse is always required to 
set it in motion. Similar features are found in birds and mam- 
malia, when these survive the removal of the cerebral hemispheres. 
They cannot take the initiative, or help themselves in cases of any 
difficulty, but, on the other hand, single elementary excitations 
call forth movements, some of which are very complex. The 
physiological significance of the cerebellum is not yet certain. It 
is thought by some to help in the co-ordination and combination 
of movements.^ 

{d) The special work reserved to the most important part of the 
brain — the cerebrtmi — can be no other than this : to elaborate and 
combine the elementary excitations received in the medulla oblon- 
gata and in the brain-ganglia, and to employ, in accordance with 
the result of this elaboration, the apparatus lying ready in these 
lower parts of the brain. The cerebrum forms the keystone to the 
ingenious structure of the nervous system. The nearer it is 
approached, the more complicated become the relations, the more 
numerous the nerve-cells and connective fibres. Here are laid 
down lines which render possible the most complex interaction 
between different impulses. When we reflect that every excitation 
works through release of tension in organic cells, and that the 
result of this release in the individual cell may be connected in the 
cerebrum with results similarly obtained from millions of other 
cells,^ we grow giddy at the thought of the combinations which are 
here possible. 

The question whether the cerebrum functions as a whole, or 
whether the several functions are localized each in its special tract, 
has received conflicting answers, and is even yet a subject of 
dispute among physiologists. Gall, the founder of phrenology, 
maintained a very far-reaching localization 'of all the higher and 
lower mental powers, but brought the idea of localization into 
disrepute by his uncritical method and his fantastic cranioscopy. 
The reaction against his doctrine is represented by Flourens, who 
argued from his experiments that any part whatsoever of the cere- 
bral hemispheres may be injured or removed without detriment 
to the brain-functions. 

This theory prevailed for about half a century, during which 

1 [Ferrler, chs. iv. vi. (Tr.)] 

2 Meynert and Bain independently calculated the number of nerve-cells in the cortex of 
the human cerebrum to be a thousand millions (Meynert, Zur Mechanik desGeJiirnbaues 
(Vienna, 1874), p. 7). — "A portion of grey matter upon the surface of a convolution, 
not larger than the head of a very small pin, will contain portions of many thousands of 
nerve-fibres " (Beale, quoted by Maudsley, Physiology of the Mind, p. 11-7}, 



II] MIND AND BODY 41 

time it was placed in doubt only by Broca's discovery (1861) that 
the seat of the most important central organs of speech and 
discourse is in the third frontal convolution of the left hemi- 
sphere. A new period of brain physiology began with the experi- 
ments undertaken by Fritsch and Hitzig (1870). These investi- 
gators thought it possible to prove that stimulation of definite 
points on the surface of the cerebrum sets up definite movements 
of definite parts of the body. Later, Hermann Munk in parti- 
cular has tried to prove the existence in the cerebrum of distinct 
organs for the apprehension and recognition of the elementary 
sensuous impressions (a sphere of sight, a sphere of hearing, &c.). 
There would thus be grounds for again believing in a localization, 
a division of labour in the cerebrum, but with this great difference, 
that only the elementary activities of the mind would be localized, not 
thought proper or " intelligence.^' ^ But even with this limitation, the 
new theory of locahzation is not undisputed.^ Goltz enters a 
protest against it, taking up an intermediate position between 
Flourens's doctrine and the new theory. He does not deny the 
possibility of a localization of the various cerebral functions, and 
he disputes the justice of Flourens's assertion that any part of the 
cerebrum can act vicariously for any other. The removal of large 
parts of both hemispheres gives rise to permanent weakness. But 
the weakening of definite sensory and motor functions, which 
accompanies the removal of certain parts of the surface of the 
cerebrum, Goltz explains partly as phenomena of inhibition 
due to the operation. If the injury is not too extensive, the 
animal recovers, a fact of which the localization theory gives only 
the forced explanation that new special centres are formed in 
brain-tracts where no such centres previously existed.^ 

While it is still disputed how far a localization of the special 
sensory functions exists in the cerebrum, the disputants agree that 
the higher mental manifestations are not tied to definite cerebral 
tracts. Both Goltz and Munk unite with Flourens in thinking that 
the most important cerebral functions, the actions from which we 
conclude intelligence, feeling, passion, and natural impulse, cannot 
depend on definite sections of the cerebrum.'^ 

1 Intelligence has its seat everywhere in the cerebrum, and nowhere in particular ; for 
it is the abstraction and the resultant of all ideas springing out of sensuous perceptions." — 
H. Munk, Ueber die Ficiiktionen der Grosshirnrmde (^^rX\\-\, 1881), p. 73. 

2 [The reference to Soltman, given in the German ed., is here omitted at Dr. HofFding's 
request, later experiments having led to contrary results. (Tr.)] 

'^ Goltz, in Pflugers Archiv fur Physiologie, vols. xx. to xxvi. 
^ •* Goltz, in PjJiigcr s Archiv, xxvi. p. 35. [A full discussion of the question of localiza,- 
tion will be found in Ferrier, ch, vii. seq. (Tr.)] 



42 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

{e) One or two examples will serve to indicate the physiological 
relation of the cerebrum to the remaining nerve-organs. The 
study of disturbances of speech seems to lead to the conclusion 
that, in the parts of the brain which lie below the surface of the 
cerebrum, only the arrangements for the mechanical execution and 
combination of sound-producing movements are to be found ; while 
the formation of syllables and words, belonging to speech proper, 
takes place in the surface of the brain. The primitive sounds 
of the little child may perhaps have in the medulla oblongata alone 
the conditions of the mechanism which controls them, while the 
fully formed sounds of a language, which are joined in syllables 
and words, and are conditioned by the development of intelli- 
gence, involve the action of higher centres.^ The movements set 
up from the mesencephalon, medulla oblongata, and spinal cord 
have the character of involuntary movement. On the other hand, 
actions which are directed by the will, inasmuch as they involve 
more or less distinct ideas of movements, can be executed only 
with the co-operation of the cerebrum.^ While, as above noted, 
elementary sense-excitations exercise their influence even upon 
animals which have been deprived of the cerebrum, the proper 
grasp and comprehension of the excitation is possible only where 
the cerebrum is uninjured. After extensive injury to both the 
cerebral lobes at the back of the head, a dog no longer grasps the 
significance of what he sees and hears. He does not turn when 
threatened with the whip, does not notice his food unless it is set 
in the usual place, is not startled by noise, does not obey when 
called, remains unaffected by tobacco smoke, and will eat a dead 
dog without any sign of disgust. On the other hand, a dog in this 
condition goes round obstacles lying in his way, and avoids 
dazzling light. Goltz and Munk give much the same account 
of the animal's condition, but disagree as to the explanation. 
According to Munk, this " soul blindness,^^ as he calls it, is 
connected with the injury to a certain definite portion of the 
surface of the brain. According to Goltz, any extensive injury to 
the cerebrum produces a similar condition. Munk explains it 
psychologically through the loss of the memory-presentations, by 
which new excitations may be recognized and understood, while 
Goltz explains it through a general intellectual dullness, espe- 
cially perhaps want of attention. Both explanations bring out 

1 Ad, Kussmaul, Die Stontngen der Sprache (Leipzig. 1877). 

2 Munk, p. 51 seq. ; cf. GoltZ;, in Pfliiger s Archiv^ xxvi. p. 6. 



II] MIND AND BODY 43 

the importance of the cerebrum in relation to the subordinate 
centres.^ 

But the cerebrum stands not only in a positive, but also in a 
negative, relation to the subordinate nerve-organs, inasmuch as it 
is able to inhibit their activity. The vegetative functions are for this 
reason carried on more vigorously during sleep, when the cerebrum 
does not interfere so strongly as in the waking state. Even in the 
lower animals, where its position is by no means so prominent as 
in the higher, this inhibiting influence is noticeable. When the 
headless frog recovers after the operation, its mobility becomes 
even greater than before. The subordinate centres respond to 
excitations more readily than the higher. This is a simple 
consequence of the fact that in the higher centres excitations 
have to go through along process — must be confronted, so to speak, 
with so many other claimants, that the individual excitation cannot 
get its own way so easily and absolutely as in the less complex 
organs. 

The increased vigour of the subordinate nervous processes after 
the removal of higher centres is explained by some as due to the 
fact that the quantity of nervous activity which an afferent 
nerve arouses in the lower centre is now spread over a smaller 
sphere, and must consequently produce speedier and stronger 
effects. But all the phenomena cannot be thus accounted for. 
Strong cerebral activity, as in sudden and powerful stimulations 
of sense, in agitation of feeling, in the exercise of thought, seems 
to influence subordinate centres immediately, preventing direct 
excitations from taking effect as they would otherwise.^ 

Through such inhibiting activity that which passes in the higher 
centres becomes of importance to the lower. We know, to take 
a simple instance, how sneezing may be prevented by a sudden 
sense-excitation. A violent emotion or pain inhibits the action 
of the heart (under the influence of the brain through the medulla 
oblongata and the nervus vagus) and so causes fainting. Great 
dread may prevent secretion of saliva, a circumstance which lay 
at the bottom of the " ordeal of God," in which the accused person 
was held to be guilty if he could hold rice in his mouth without 
wetting it. Weeping can be prevented by a sudden, gripping 
stimulus ; peristaltic motions, by an affection of the nervus 
splanchnicus. It is not only by single sense-stimuli that inhibiting 

J Goltz, in PJliigers Arckiv, xxvi. p. 42 seq ; Munk, p. 29. 
- Eckhard, Physiol, des Riickemiiarks (Hermann, ii. 2), p. 37. 



44 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

forces are liberated in this way : more complicated brain functions 
exercise a similar influence ; and in a later chapter we shall see 
that an important part of the supremacy of the will is connected 
with this. All that need be noted at present is, that the phenomena 
of inhibition are the stronger the fuller the organism is of life, 
and weaker when the organism is in a state of fatigue. In this 
respect the condition of the central organ is of decisive influence ; 
if it is tired, badly nourished, or affected by cold or strychnine 
and certain other poisons, the reflex movement increases in speed, 
strength, and extent. With " nervous " persons, whose unhealthy 
state is connected with disturbances of nutrition in muscles and 
nerves, there is found a strong propensity to reflex movements and 
spasms.^ So far as there is any occasion to talk of reflex move- 
ments (in the sense of immediate motor responses) within the 
brain itself, the brain is a complete little world, possessing in its 
myriads of cells and fibres the means for internal strengthening or 
inhibition, for internal debate, and for the struggle for supremacy 
among all the impulses that can arise in it. 

5. From the purely physical point of view, which is also the physio- 
logical, everything that takes place in the nervous system, even 
in its highest centres, is a conversion of forces, since an excita- 
tion from the external world, or from within the organism itself, 
sets free the tension accumulated in the nervous tissue. The 
physiological way of expressing it is to say that the excitation (the 
irritant) calls forth a reaction, which consists either in a movement 
of the muscles or a secretion of the glands, or in a more com- 
prehensive process in the centres of the nervous system. But it 
is evident that in the case of some of the phenomena included in 
these points of view, a third point of view must be established^ 
namely, the psychological, for with the physico-physiological pro- 
cesses are linked certain states of consciousness. Then comes the 
question of the relation between these different points of view. Is the 
one subordinated to the rest in such away that, as the physiological 
point of view is included in the physical — if the word physical be 
taken in the widest sense — so the psychological should be included 
in the physiological as one of its special forms .^^ Is that which 
is presented to us from the one point of view perhaps the cause or 
the effect of that which is presented to us from the others ? 

Something is still wanting for the clearing up of this question. 

1 Wundt, Physiol. Psychologie, \. pp. 260-263 (3rd ed. i. pp. 273 seq.) ; Panum, Nerve- 
vclvets Fysiologi ("The Physiology of the Nervous Tissue"), p 196 seq. 



n] MIND AND BODY 45 

For, while we have given a sketch of what in physiology is of 
importance for our problem, we have not yet given any detailed 
account of the characteristics of the conscious phenomena. The 
psychological point of view, therefore, has not yet been clearly 
presented. It is the special object of all the following inves- 
tigations to give an account of the mental life, and it will 
of course be impossible to give it now. But since I have 
chosen to treat of the general problem of the relation between 
mind and body before dealing with the more special psychological 
questions, which in many ways presuppose a definite conception of 
that problem, nothing remains but to present here a preliminary 
description of the psychological phenomena, reserving to the 
following chapters the more complete proofs of its validity. 

Consciousness in general is in the same position as particular 
forms or elements of consciousness (colours and sounds, e.g.) ; a 
description or definition of them is impossible, because they are 
fundamental facts, and cannot be traced back to anything simpler 
and clearer. But this does not exclude the bringing out of their 
most important characteristics. Attention may be directed namely 
to those marginal cases, in which consciousness is just gliding 
over into unconscious states ; and we may observe and investigate 
the transitions from weaker and more obscure to stronger and 
clearer consciousness, through which the higher states of con- 
sciousness are conditioned. 

A completely uniform and unchanged condition has a tendency 
to arrest consciousness. Uniform impressions (such as the ripphng 
of a fountain) have a somniferous effect. The more change and 
variety are kept at a distance, the more consciousness gives 
place to unconscious states. Staring at one special point produces 
a sort of border state. Thomas Hobbes, the founder of English 
psychology, maintained that to have always the same feeling and 
to have none at all were one and the same thing.^ 

By uniform treatment, as, for instance, by being stroked up and 
down regularly with the hands, or by being made to fix attention 
on a single point, a person can be put in a hypnotic or somnambulant 
condition. James Braid, the discoverer of hypnotism, gives as the 
condition of its appearance, '' monoideism,"'-^— that is, absorption 
in one idea. 

1 De Corpore, xxv. 5 ; cf. Leibniz, Monadologie, § 24. 

2 Cf. Preyer, Die Entdeckung des Hypnotisjns (Berlin, 1881), p. 41 seq., 81 ; Richet 
" Le Somnambulisme provoque" (in the treatise V Hoiuine ci V Intelligence (Pans. 
1884. [Sully, Ilhtsions, pp. 185, 187. (Tr.)] 



46 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

Concentration of attention on a single thought has the same 
effect as absorption in one sense-affection. The mystic tries to 
lose himself in the Deity, to him an absolute unity, and to become 
one with the Deity ; therefore he strives to avoid all change of ideas, 
and the more he succeeds in doing so, the more nearly he approaches 
to ecstasy — a condition which is described as being raised above all 
consciousness. To attain to this end the mystics often made use 
also of hypnotism. 

By changes, consciousness is aroused from sleep or from a state 
of abstraction. If awake, consciousness is quickened and enhanced 
by contrasts and changes. We feel cold more intensely on coming 
out of a warm room ; light appears of extreme brilliancy when 
we come out of deep darkness ; we are thoroughly conscious 
of quiet and repose only after the noisy town or hard work. 

But change and contrast are not in themselves enough. They 
give a sudden shock, a surprise ; but unless the effect they produce 
were preserved, it would be only like a quickly vanishing ray 
of light. It is possible to imagine a living being constituted 
so as from time to time to have quite isolated sensations. 
Such separate rays would not correspond to sensations as we 
have them ; in us the single elements of consciousness are 
not isolated, but are from beginning to end in closer or looser 
connection. Such a connection is necessary, to enable even 
the single impressions, each for itself, to take effect. Then the 
earlier conditions must admit of retention or reproduction^ to make 
a connection and an interaction among the different elements 
of consciousness possible. This is corroborated by the fact that 
want of connection and interaction among the elements of 
consciousness is a sign of approaching dissolution. As mental 
disease advances, fixed ideas are formed, rendering free natural 
stir and conflict among ideas impossible. At a later stage not 
even fixed ideas can be held fast and applied ; no comparisons 
can be instituted, or combinations made. Finally there ensues a 
complete absence of images and thoughts : sensuous impressions 
are no longer elaborated, memory is almost extinguished, and the 
power of speech for the most part lost.^ 

The two conditions we have mentioned do not, however, sufHce 
for a full account of conscious life. They would serve equally 
well for organic life. The power of preserving and repro- 

1 Cf. Griesinger, Die Pathologic unci Therapie der psychischen Krankheiten 
(Stuttgart, 1861), pp. 323-351. 



II] MIND AND BODY 47 

ducing earlier states is found in unconscious nature. But what 
this lacks is the power of recog7iizing the states reproduced. 
With unconscious beings one moment falls outside the other, even 
though the content of both is the same. In recognition, on 
the contrary, the distinctions of time and space are annulled, 
things which have been experienced at different times and in 
different places being immediately brought together. In recog- 
nition and in memory is expressed an inner unity, to which the 
material world affords no parallel. 

Conscious life has thus three main characteristics : (i) change 
and contrast as condition of the individual elements entering 
consciousness ; (2) preservation or reproduction of previously 
given elements, together with connection between these and the 
new elements ; and (3) the inner unity of recognition. 

If we look back on our previous states of consciousness, they 
come before us as a series of sensations, representations, and 
feelings — as a stream with succeeding waves. It may often 
seem to memory as though this series were composed of in- 
dependent, separate units, only externally combined. Some 
psychologists (in particular Hume) have consequently described 
consciousness as a mere succession of ideas without inner 
bond and connection, or more precisely as the series of our 
possible and actual sensations (John Stuart Mill). But the fact 
that it is impossible for the individual elements within what we 
know as consciousness to stand out absolutely isolated, shows 
distinctly the inaccuracy of this description. Every individual 
element belongs to consciousness only through its union with 
other elements. The emphasis is thus to be laid on the union, the 
connection, and not on the members in their individuality. The 
peculiarity of the phenomena of consciousness as contrasted with 
the subject-matter of the science of external nature — mate- 
rial phenomena — is precisely that inner connection between the 
individual elements in virtue of which they appear as belonging to 
one and the same subject ; and this connection has its typical 
expression in memory^ which may on that account be called the 
fundamental phenomenon in the mental province. That which has 
escaped the memory may still indirectly, through its after-effects, 
exercise a great influence on our conscious life, but is no longer 
a part of it. In the physical world memory can be spoken of only 
figuratively. Everywhere, where there is development, later events 
are conditioned by earlier ; and by virtue of the law of the per- 



48 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

sistence of energy, nothing happens, however insignificant, without 
exercising its effect on what happens afterwards. But only on the 
supposition of a consciousness can that which is past be itself 
re-experienced, actually enter into a later mental connection, so 
that the distinctions of time are annulled. The different stages 
at which this fundamental psychological phenomenon appears, 
and the forms it takes, will be discussed in a later chapter. 

It here remains to add that this intimate union and unity 
may vary greatly in degree, and that in our psychological ex- 
perience we never meet with it in the highest degree imaginable. 
Beneath the clearness and the connection in our conscious- 
ness there is always a more or less obscure chaos ; the original 
elements must always arise in it as something given, to serve 
as material for its activity. There is thus a passive and an 
active side in the nature of consciousness, the former corresponding 
in the first instance to the diversity of the elements, the latter to 
the unity and the connection of all conscious content. The energy 
of consciousness is manifested in the way in which the individual 
elements are connected and brought into interaction. Kant, there- 
fore, rightly characterized consciousness as a synthesis. Synthesis, 
at whatever stage in the development of conscious life we look for it, 
presupposes a given manifold. It combines individual sensations 
into percepts, forms representations into concepts, s-ud so forth. 
Work of this kind is carried on from the very threshold of con- 
sciousness ; this is implied in the fact that consciousness approaches 
more closely to unconsciousness, the nearer it comes to the point 
where there is only a single element. Consciousness, in awakening 
to clearness, finds its special work in full progress. Synthesis, to 
employ Kant's words, is " a blind, but indispensable, function 
of the soul, without which we should have no knowledge what- 
soever, but of the existence of which we are scarcely conscious." ^ 

It is especially this property of conscious life which makes its 
origin so great a problem. For even if we admit the existence 
of elementary sensations in less developed organisms, still the 
decisive test is the connection, the unity of these sensations. The 
first sensation cannot, of course, be attached to any other mental 
element ; how, then, can synthesis and consciousness exist here .'* 
Similar questions arise wherever we go back to the beginning. 
The question of the origin of organic life presents a like difficulty. 

1 Kant, Kritik der rehien Vernnnft^ ist ed.. p. 78 (Kehrbach's edition, p. 95). [Max 
Miiller's translation, p. 69.] 



II] MIND AND BODY 49 

It is a principle of physiology that every organic cell springs from 
another cell {pmnis cellula e cellula) ; but the first organic cell must 
have originated under quite different conditions. 

The history of psychology shows that different schools of thought 
have laid different weight on the two sides in the nature of conscious- 
ness. The German school (Leibniz, Kant, Hegel) lays paramount 
stress on synthesis, activity, unity. The English school (and Herbart 
in Germany) has given prominence to the passive or mechanical 
side, to the diverse elements and their reciprocal interaction. Each 
school is especially strong in the treatment of different problems. 
The English school devotes attention rather to the elementary, 
real side of conscious life, to the manner in which the mental 
structure is raised by the combination of fundamental elements ; 
the German school, on the contrary, attends more to the connec- 
tion and the unity which from beginning to end are the marks of 
consciousness. The more recent English school appears to meet 
the German school in the recognition of the fact that the individual 
sensation or idea exists only as a member of a connected, con- 
scious series, and that consciousness therefore can never be 
conceived as mere sum or mere product.^ 

German psychology has often exhibited a tendency to approach 
metaphysics ; English psychology, on the other hand, has ap- 
proached the mechanical sciences, and has transferred analogies 
from them to the conception of mental phenomena. 

In the account of consciousness just given, we have con- 
fined ourselves mainly to the formal side. Only in the more special 
psychological discussion shall we be able to deal more closely with 
the real side. In the present connection we must content ourselves 
with calling attention to the fact, that the unity of mental life has 
its expression not only in memory and synthesis, but also in 
a dominant fundamental feeling, characterized by the contrast 
between pleasure and pain, and in an impulse, springing from this 
fundamental feeling, to movement and activity. 

Synthesis is the fundamental form of all consciousness. But 
the activity which finds expression in synthesis is in every in- 
dividual case directed to a definite end. This end may be more or 
less conscious ; but the activity directed to it will be accompanied 
by a feeling of pleasure, the interruption of this activity by a feel- 
ing of pain. The capacity to feel pleasure and pain, quite as much 

1 On this point see my book, ^^ Den engelske Filosofi i vor Tid" ("The English 
Philosophy of our Times"), (Copenhagen, 1874); German translation, 1889. 



50 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

as the synthetic activity, presupposes a unity, an inner central 
point, into relation with which the changing diverse elements of 
consciousness are brought. The relation between the formal and 
the real side of consciousness we shall examine more closely in 
another connection (V. B. 5). 

6. If we now try to institute a comparison between the activity of 
consciousness, as we have provisionally described it, and the func- 
tions of the nervous system, a wealth of parallel traits will present 
themselves. It might even be said that the need for a visible image 
of the mind — a need which so often asserts itself at the unscientific 
standpoint — is actually met by Nature herself in the form and 
method of function of the nervous system. The next problem, 
then, is to explain the image — to find out the relation between the 
symbol and the thing symbolized. 

{a) The great importance of the nervous system, as we have seen, 
lies in its serving as the connecting central organ of the several 
parts of the organism, guiding their activities into inner har- 
mony, and enabling them to present a combined front to the 
external world. Exactly the same task is fulfilled by consciousness 
in its own way. In it things scattered in space and time are 
brought together, the wave-beats of the conditions of life are ex- 
pressed as a rhythm of pleasure and pain, and in memory and 
intellectual activity is manifested the closest concentration to be 
found in the whole of our experience. 

{b) To become conscious of something presupposes a change, a 
transition, a contrast. The content and energy of consciousness 
must have their equilibrium disturbed, the attention must be aroused. 
An arousing, an excitation (irritant) is in like manner essential to 
the function of the nervous system. The excitation operates by 
setting free restrained force, by upsetting equilibrium in the nerve- 
fibres and nerve-centres. 

{c) But the excitation acts not only on single centres ; owing 
to the highly ramified connection between the different nerve- 
centres, it sets free a series of processes which reciprocally augment 
or inhibit one another, so that the total effect depends on the result 
of this physiological debate. To this corresponds on the psycho- 
logical side the calling up of associated ideas by simple sensations. 
The simple sensation has thus not a simple, but a very com- 
plicated, effect. The psychological relation between sensation and 
memory has its physiological parallel in the relation between the 
arrival of an excitation in the central nerve-organs and the interaction 



n] MIND AND BODY 51 

among these organs. Not only from the purely physical, but from 
the physiological, point of view, the effect of the spark on the powder 
is the most appropriate representation of what here takes place. 

{d) The formation of sensations and representations takes a 
certain amount of time. Of all our movements, the unconscious 
are most quickly executed. The greater the caution, the slower the 
action. The more complicated the operations undertaken, the longer 
the time required. In like manner the nervous process takes a cer- 
tain time, which physiology has begun to measure. All that here 
interests us is the circumstance that movement^ in the nerve-fibres 
passes more quickly than movement in the nerve-centres (the grey 
substance), and more especially that the central nervous functions 
(the psycho-physical functions), with which the activity of conscious- 
ness seems to be hnked, take more time than the purely physiological 
functions. It accords with this, that actions, undertaken at first 
consciously, become unconscious after frequent repetition and 
exercise, and more quickly executed. The child learning to read 
looks closely at each letter until he recognizes it, and devotes 
special attention and care to its accurate pronunciation. But 
by degrees he learns to read aloud, without thinking about the 
formation of the letters and the character of the sound. So with 
dressing and undressing, walking, dancing, swimming, and many of 
our daily occupations. The shorter the time that passes betwen 
the excitation and the movement it sets up (the reaction-time, 
the physiological time), the more unconsciously does the action 
take place. 

{e) To the physiological hierarchy of principal and subordinate 
nerve-centres, and to the relative independence of the latter, cor- 
responds the fact that in our organism there are activities which 
under normal conditions are not accompanied by consciousness, 
but which become conscious if taken out of their normal conditions! 
The functions of nutrition, for example, are usually carried on un- 
heeded. They give rise to sensations accompanied by pleasure or 
pain only when they are especially favoured or hindered. When 
food is wanting the blood ceases to flow to the stomach, which 
has then nothing more to work up, and from the consequent want 
of nourishment for the nerves arises, as some suppose, the feeling 
of hunger. This feeling is a particularly good example of the 
transition from unconsciousness to consciousness, since it passes 
through a whole scale of degrees, from the first vague feeling of 
discomfort up to the most terrible torture. 

E 2 



52 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

The psychological parallel to the relation between higher and 
lower nerve-centres appears from another side in the phenomena 
of movement. We have just seen how new reflex actions may 
result from constant and repeated functioning of the higher centres. 
But the higher centres also, as already noted, exercise an inhibiting 
influence on the involuntary movements which can be set up in 
lower centres. As the exercise of new reflex movements corre- 
sponds to the positive work of the will, so the inhibition of natural 
and involuntary movements corresponds to its negative work. Our 
natural as well as our artificial education consists in partly ac- 
customing, partly disaccustoming, ourselves to something. This 
will be treated more in detail in the chapter on the psychology of 
the will ; here we would only suggest that even the struggle between 
" the spirit and the flesh '^ has its physiological counterpart. 

(/) Finally, a parallel appears between the different sides of 
conscious life and the different organs of the nervous system. In 
cognition and feeling consciousness turns as it were an open side 
to the not-self; where it thus lies open, it is mainly receptive and 
appropriative. In will (at its several stages of instinct, impulse, 
purpose, and resolve) we have, on the other hand, the response of 
the conscious Hfe, the mental reaction. Precisely the same 
double-sidedness is found in the nervous system, in the contrast 
between the sensory and motor organs. To conceive thought, 
feehng, and will as locahzed, each in its special place in the 
brain, would be to revive the errors of phrenology : no one of 
these, looked at psychologically, is a single and simple process, 
the course of which may be conceived as in one definite organ ; 
they inter-penetrate, as will be proved later, to such a degree 
that it is only in the abstract mode of speech that we can talk of 
them as different processes. Here we refer only to the general 
schema of the nervous system : an in-going movement, a central 
elaboration of it, an out-going movement. The same schema 
serves for the conscious life. 

7. We must assume that these parallels have a real significance ; 
there must be an inner connection between conscious life and the 
brain. 

' The matter might be most simply settled, if we could immediately 
observe that conscious hfe is attached to the brain, a certain 
state of consciousness being accompanied by the sensation of a 
certain state of the brain. In severe mental work we do, indeed, 
think we feel something in the brain ; but it is not the function 



II] MIND AND BODY 53 

of the brain itself which is then felt. Such phenomena, according 
to Griesinger/ appear to correspond to processes connected with 
the membranes of the brain and their supply of blood. 

It is evident, moreover, that it was long before the connection 
of consciousness with the brain was fully estabhshed. In ancient 
times the seat of the mind was held to be in the blood, in the 
diaphragm, or in the heart. Among the ancient Greeks, only 
Alcmaeon and Plato taught that we think with the head. Hero- 
philus, the great Alexandrian anatomist (300 B.C.), was the first to 
transfer the mind to the brain, relying on definite facts — that is 
to say, on the observation that the nerves, and especially the 
sensory nerves, are collected in the brain as the last centre.^ But 
this anatomical proof is not enough to establish the conviction of 
the real connection between consciousness and brain. However 
a series of comparative observations and experiments has here 
been decisive. 

In the lowest animals a nervous system has not yet been dis- 
covered. In Mollusca and Articulata there is only slight central- 
ization of the nervous system ; at the best the central nervous 
system consists of a ring of nerve-ganglia. The lowest vertebrate, 
the Amphioxus, has only a spinal cord, no brain ; and in the 
lower classes of vertebrates the brain is developed in a much lower 
degree than the spinal cord. 

The more the cerebrum preponderates over the other brain- 
organs, the more highly do we find the conscious life developed. 
The higher centres occupy far more room in the brain of man 
than in that of animals, the immediate centres for sensation and 
muscular movement having apparently the ascendency in the 
latter. The greater or smaller wealth of convolutions in the brain 
is also proved to stand in connection with the higher or lower stages 
of development of conscious life. The brain of the more intelligent 
species of dog has more convolutions than that of the less in- 
telligent species ; man is in this respect far in advance of apes, 
which in other respects come so close to him in structure ; the 
cerebral hemispheres of distinguished men are very large, and rich 
in convolutions. 

With this agrees the constitution of the brain in the foetus and the 
new-born infant. In the earlier states of the foetus the cerebrum, 
in man as in all vertebrates, lies in front of the other portions of 

1 Die Pathologie nnd Thcrapie der psychischen Krankheiten, 2nd ed., p. 26. 

2 Exner, Physiologie der Grosshirnrinde (Hermann's Haudbnch, ii., 2) p. 193. 



54 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

the brain without covering them. In the course of development it 
covers (in man and to some extent in apes) first the pons Varolii 
and ultimately the cerebellum. The cerebrum of new-born 
children — both in structure and in power of functioning — is little 
developed, while the subordinate brain-apparatus is ready for 
immediate use. 

Finally, it is proved by experiments that sensations arise only if 
excitations are conveyed from the surface of the organism to the 
brain, and that voluntary movement is possible only if the motor- 
centres in the brain are uninjured. By removal of the cerebrum 
the conscious life of animals which can survive the operation is 
weakened, deliberation and initiative are lost. Conversely, a dull 
and undeveloped conscious life (as in idiots) is connected with a 
defective nourishment and defective development of the brain ; and 
the advancing dissolution of conscious life in mental disease is 
accompanied by gradual dissolution of the brain, especially in the 
cerebrum. If the veins which supply arterial blood to the brain 
are tied up, there ensues an unconscious state, which leads to 
death.i 

8. Now, whither are we led by this formal agreement and this 
actual connection between conscious life and the life of the 
brain? - 

No hypothesis can be admitted which does not allow due weight 
to all the facts we have brought forward. In the nature of the 
case only four possibilities can be conceived ; {a) either con- 
sciousness and brain, mind and body, act one upon the other as 
two distinct beings or substances ; {b) or the mind is only a form 
or a product of the body ; {c) or the body is only a form or a 
product of one or several mental beings ; {d) or finally, mind 
and body, consciousness and brain, are evolved as different 
forms of expression of one and the same being. These several 
possibilities we now proceed to examine, relying on the results 
set forth in the preceding sections. Whichever we may prefer, 
it is clear that we can adopt it only as a provisional hypothesis. 
At the same time it must be carefully borne in mind, in 
the following examination of the different hypotheses, that, 
as already noted (II., I.), we are here concerned with the 
relation between mind and body only from the point of view of 
experiential psychology, and are not in search of a final philo- 

T- Exner, pp. 193-206; Griesinger, pp. 418-444; Tardieu, Etude ■ni^dicolegale sur la. 
Folic ^ 2nd ed., pp. 85-89, 119. 



ii] MIND AND BODY 55 

sophical or metaphysical theory. Possibly the result arrived at 
must be reconsidered before it can take its place in a philosophical 
theory : but our present task is not the establishment of such a 
theory. The hypotheses now to be examined lie on the borders 
between experiential science and metaphysics ; but we are con- 
cerned with them only from the point of view of the former, 

(a) The ordinary notion is that the mind acts upon the body 
and the body upon the mind. It is perhaps thought that we feel 
this immediately, although this seems to be at once contradicted 
by the want of agreement as to the existence of a mind, independent, 
and distinct from the body, and by the fact that in any case it is 
only indirectly that we have come to know with which part of the 
body the mind is more particularly connected. " But are there 
not unquestionable facts which prove the truth of this view ? An 
excitation of a sense-organ is transmitted to the brain, and there 
passes into sensation, while conversely, our will is able to set 
the body in motion ! '' But it is just the relation between what 
passes in the brain and states of consciousness that is the question, 
and if the facts were as stated, we should have no reason for 
asking it ; we should already know the answer. If the state of 
the brain, with which the sensation or the decision is connected, 
does not itself become an object of consciousness, it is impossible 
to discover whether tnere really is a causal relation, or a 
relation of interaction, between the brain' and consciousness or 
not. There is no justification, therefore, for maintaining, as 
a fact, that a bodily process causes a mental process, or the 
reverse. And it will be admitted, on further reflection, that, even 
if physiology could give a scientific explanation of the condition 
of the brain which ensues when I am struck by a stone, the 
feeling of pain aroused in me would not be included in the 
physiological explanation. Physiology, like every natural science, 
explains a material process by means of other material processes. 
Its assumptions are not framed to include a case in which one 
member of the causal relation shall be spatial, the other non- 
spatial. 

The supposition that a causal relation may exist between the 
mental and the material is contrary to the doctrine of the 
^' conservation of energy." For at the point where the material nerve- 
process should be converted into mental activity, a sum of physical 
energy would disappear without the loss being made good by a 
corresponding sum of physical energy. To this it has been 



56 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

answered that it is, indeed, inconceivable how material activity 
can pass into mental activity, but that, taken strictly, every 
transition, every conversion of force, is inconceivable to us ; 
and, moreover, that the doctrine of the conservation of energy 
requires only that a certain corresponding sum of energy shall 
come into action instead of that which has disappeared, it being 
all one whether this equivalent be of a physical or a psychical 
nature. But this would be a bold and unwarranted extension of 
the doctrine of the conservation of energy, which, in the form in 
which it lies before us, is a purely physical doctrine. Such an 
extension would imply the possibility of finding a common measure 
for the mental and the material. Now what denominator is 
common to a thought and a material movement, or what common 
form serves for both.^ Until such a common form can be 
pointed out, all talk about an interaction between the mental and 
the material is, from a scientific point of view, unjustified. So 
long as we confine ourselves to the material we are on safe 
ground, and so long as we confine ourselves to the mental we 
are on safe ground ; but any attempt to represent a transition from 
physical to psychological laws, or conversely, brings us face to 
face with the inconceivable. In the causal concept, as in all 
concepts which condition our apprehension of reality, there is 
contained an epistemological problem. As at all points where we 
approach the boundary lines of our knowledge, difficulties arise, 
but a difficulty multiplies itself when the causal concept is 
employed to connect two factors which have no common measure. 

The ordinary notion, indeed, leads involuntarily to a doctrine 
of homogeneity, since mind is apprehended as material when 
it is thought of as affected by material movements, and the 
material is turned into something mental when regarded as open 
to mental influence (as Plato makes reason " persuade ^^ matter). ^ 

It will easily be seen that it avails nothing to say that the mind 
may not indeed be able to increase the sum of physical energy 
in the world, but that it can alter the direction of the applied 
^energy. A physical movement does not change its direction 
except under the influence of a physical force of a certain strength. 
So that this subterfuge also of necessity makes the energy of 
consciousness a physical energy. 

The application of the causal conception presupposes not only 
a common measure, but also a difference in time. The question 
which has been raised, as to whether cause and effect are 



II] MIND AND BODY 57 

simultaneous or not, rests partly on a misunderstanding, and in 
any case does not concern us here. On the other hand, it cannot 
be denied that the conception of causality would never have been 
formed had not phenomena been subject to change. If everything 
were uniform and unchangeable, we should have nothing about 
whose cause we could inquire. The relation of causality pre- 
supposes the occurrence of an event. If the relation between mind 
and body, or consciousness and brain, is a causal relation, there 
must be a difference of time between the process in the 
brain and the act of consciousness. This, however, is contrary 
to the view suggested by physiology. As we have seen, the aim 
of modern physiology is to conceive all organic processes as 
physical or chemical. It does not boast that it has explained the 
origin of organic life ; it maintains only that where it has attained 
to a comprehension of anything in the region of organic life, this 
has in every case been by the tracing back of organic phenomena 
to physical and chemical laws. If, then, there is a transition from 
physiological function to psychological activity, from body to mind, 
physiology at any rate, working with its present method, cannot 
discover it. 

To admit such a transition implies that the physiological pro- 
cess is interrupted at certain points, namely when the stimulus 
becomes a sensation, to be resumed by a psychological process, 
under changed conditions, when the mind has recovered from 
the material stimulation and responds to it with an act of 
will. The idea of a causal relation between mental and material 
forces upon physiology an interruption of this kind. But physio- 
logy will hardly be induced ever to admit such interruption. Apart 
from the physical, which is also a physiological, difficulty 
involved in the breach of the doctrine of the conservation of 
energy, the nerve-process must from the physiological stand- 
point be conceived as a connected course. In this depart- 
ment very much is still unexplained.^ The relation between 
nerve fibres and nerve-cells is very obscure ; the physical pro- 
perties of the ganglion-cells, and consequently the physical origin 
of the simplest reflex movement, are not yet understood ; it is 
not even quite certain that the ganglion-cells form the connecting 

I Cf. Ditlefsen, Menneskets Histologie ("Histology of Man ") (Copenhagen, 1879), 
p. 582. '' The new discoveries as to the structure of the nerve-fibres have not advanced 
our knowledge of the relation between them and the cells ; for the time being we must 
tentatively hold that the nerve-cells are centres of the nerve-fibres, and address our 
histological investigations to the task of producing a satisfactory morphological under- 
standmg of this physiological fact." 



58 OUTLINES OF rSYCHOLOGY [ii 

link between the afferent and efferent nerve-fibres. Nor has it 
been possible to point out the anatomical connection between the 
centres of the centripetal and those of the centrifugal nerves in the 
spinal cord.^ But in spite of all this, physiology cannot permit its 
boundaries to be invaded from without. Its fundamental thought 
is the universal coherence of organic life ; it tries to explain the 
more complicated processes by reducing them to the simpler ; it 
learns from the lower phenomena how the higher are to be under- 
stood, for it takes the principles of structure and of activity to be 
the same throughout. Thus e.j^': the doctrine of reflex move- 
ments throws a light on the way in which the highest cerebral 
functions are to be explained/^ though we are not thereby justified 
in concluding straight away that all cerebral activity is reflex 
activity. So far as we can speak of final results in the physiology of 
the brain, this represents the brain as a republic of nerve-centres, 
each with its function, and all in interaction ; but there is nothing 
to indicate the possibility of the physiological process breaking off 
at any point to pass into a process of a wholly different kind. 

Of course there is always one way of escape ; to deny the 
universal vahdity of the doctrine of energy. This doctrine is not 
experimentally proved, and as we have seen, cannot, strictly speak- 
ing, ever be so proved. But according to the general rules of 
methodology, we may not, in framing our hypotheses and in judg- 
ing of them when framed, enter into conflict with leading scientific 
principles. And in modern natural science, the doctrine of energy 
is such a leading principle. If, therefore, an hypothesis is in 
conflict with this doctrine, the fact tells at once decidedly 
against it. 

The ordinary doctrine of interaction (the doctrine of the iitjluxus 
physicics, as it was called in earlier times) is presented in a stricter, 
more metaphysical, and in a vaguer, more indefinite, form. In 
its metaphysical form it appeared in the writings of Descartes, 
who conceived of mind and body as two substances, absolutely 
distinct in kind, but nevertheless acting on one another. Here 
was made the hasty attempt, already mentioned, to prove the soul 

^ C'. I.ange Ky^niarvcfis Patcyloi^I (" PaLliology of the Spine"), p. 24; Eckhard, 
P/iysiolog'/\u/e-s K /a/cenfjiar/cs und dcs C,ch/rjis{i^QYnxdiXm, ii., 2), pp. 7-19, 61 seq. [Ferrier, 
p. 60 seq. ('l'r.)l 

2 After Marshall Hall (1833) had laid down the theory of reflex-movement, Lay- 
cock (1840) pointed out that its princi])le must be applied to the physiology of the brain 
also. ("On the Rellcx Action of the Drain. The Jh-itish and Fo}-eign JMcdical Review^ 
1845). Independently, as it seems, of J^aycock, (jriesinger expressed the same thought in his 
treatise " Ueber psycliisclie Rcllexaktionen " {Archlv fiir physiologUc/ie IlcUkundcy 
1843.) 



II] MIND AND BODY 59 

to be an independent substance, a view which exchanged the 
standpoint of experiential psychology for that of metaphysics. 
But it was precisely the distinct and clear form which Descartes 
gave to the current doctrine that to an extraordinary extent 
contributed to lay bare its weak points. It was abandoned, as the 
history of philosophy shows, as soon as it was set forth with all its 
consequences. To Descartes, therefore, belongs the credit of 
having set the problem of the relation between mind and body. 
For to the current notion in its vaguer form there is no difficulty in 
this relation. With legitimate heedlessness, the practical usage of 
speech ignores theoretical difficulties. Ordinary language no more 
regards the fact that physiology and psychology are opposed to the 
notion of brain and consciousness acting on one another, than it re- 
spects the doubt of Copernicus as to the sun really moving round 
the earth. Moreover, the practical usage of speech has been 
formed under the influence of a partly spiritualistic, partly 
materialistic, metaphysics. 

(J?) An end is put to this inconsequence and vagueness, when one 
of the two factors, whose connection is the point in question, is 
without more ado struck out. And since the perception of the 
external, material world takes the leading part in our ordinary, 
every-day ideas, while our inner self-consciousness is with diffi- 
culty educated to a like clearness and distinctness, it is perhaps 
the most natural thing to identify materiality with reality, and 
to conceive of the mental as a form or effect of the same. 
Certainly materialism is historically older than the current doc- ^ 

trine of an interaction. Homer and the earliest Greek philo- /vC^ 
sophers (before Socrates and Plato) are materiahsts ; even in the^l \ 
teaching of the Christian Fathers before Augustine materialistic \ 
notions predominated. The older forms of materialism did, how- 
ever, draw a distinction between mind and body, though regarding 
both as material substances {cf. 15). Modern materialism does 
away with this duality, usually treating the mental as a function or 
a side of the material. In modern times materialism has found a 
solid basis in the doctrine of the conservation of matter and energy 
and in that of physiological continuity. It has full justification as 
against every spiritualistic line of thought which leads to the setting 
of external limits to the series of physical and physiological causes. 
As a method of natural science, materialism is unanswerable. But 
it is another affair when the method is converted without more ado 
into a system. It has a perfect right to treat all changes and 



6o OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

functions of the organism, in particular of the brain, as material ; 
but as a system it goes farther, and maintains that the phenomena 
of consciousness are only changes or functions of the brain, and in 
this consists its encroachment. 

Karl Vogt gave in his time great offence by declaring (in his 
Physiological Letters) that " as contraction is the function of the 
muscles and as the kidneys secrete urine, so, and in the same way, 
does the brain generate thoughts, movements and feelings." It might 
appear as though he had here left a choice between two ideas : to 
conceive of thoughts either as matter or as movement. The first 
mode of conception, though it comes closest to direct apprehension, 
and was on this account chiefly adopted in the ancient materialism, 
has on closer consideration something so quaint about it, that it 
needs no further discussion. And in Vogt's comparison of the origin 
of thought and the origin of secreted matter doubtless the chief 
emphasis is to be laid on the secreting activity, not on the product. 
The principle, however, remains the same. Even among cautious 
physiologists with some philosophical training, the doctrine that 
conscious activity is a function of the brain may be sometimes met 
with. And yet it would seem as though just the strict physiological 
use of the term function must contradict such a doctrine. To 
say, e.g.^ that contraction is the function of the muscle only means 
that it is a certain form and a certain condition of the muscle in 
movement. As Goethe has put it, " Function ist Dasein in 
Thatigkeit gedacht." The muscle when functioning is just as 
material as the muscle when at rest, and that which has not the pro- 
perties of the material cannot be the form of activity of something 
which is material. The conception function (in the physiological 
sense) ^ implies, just as much as the conception matter or product, 
something presented as an object of intuition in the form of space. 
But thought and feeling cannot be pictured as objects in space or 
as movements. We get to know them, not by external intuition, 
but by self-perception and self-consciousness, — a source from which 
the physiologist also draws, without being always clearly conscious 
of the fact, when he inquires into the relation of conscious to 
organic life. By many round-about ways it has been at last dis- 
covered that certain definite phenomena of consciousness are con- 
nected with the function of certain definite parts of the brain. It is 

1 In the mathematical sense, however, we have a perfect right to say that consciousness 
is a function of the brain, since experience shows a certain proportionality between the 
degrees of development of consciousness and of the brain. Conscious activity would then, 
to speak precisely, be a mathematical function of the physiological function of the brain. 



II] MIND AND BODY 6i 

not even doubted that the highest of all the activities of conscious- 
ness have their corresponding cerebral functions, — as the most 
beautiful melodies are not too sublime to be expressed by notes. 
But activity of consciousness and cerebral function always come to 
be known through different sources of experience. The encroach- 
ment of materialism consists in the fact that it effaces this essential 
distinction without more ado. In quietly attributing to the brain 
the power of being conscious, or in even perhaps making the brain 
the subject of the manifestations of consciousness/ materialism is 
really returning to a fanciful mythological standpoint. 

We are attending here principally to empirical or phenomeno- 
logical materialism, that is to say, to the view which holds as the 
direct result of experiential science, that the phenomena of con- 
sciousness are forms or effects of material phenomena, so that all 
reality may be traced back to movements in space. Here we 
move in the region not only which we ourselves prefer, but in 
which materialism has always believed itself to move. Materialism 
has never observed that, even if all its assertions are admitted to 
be just, it yet always overlooks something which gives rise to 
a new, and for it a terrible problem ; namely the circumstance, 
that movement in space is known to us only as an object of 
our consciousness. For the theory of knowledge, such notions 
as consciousness, idea, and intuition lie deeper than such notions 
as matter and movement. For this reason an absolute and de- 
cided materialism was possible only in ancient times, before the 
awakening of more deeply penetrating philosophical reflection. 
Democritus is the only consistent materialist. None of the modern 
materialistic writers can speak with the calm and the certainty with 
which Lucretius in his majestic verses sets forth the doctrine of 
Democritus. Modern materialists for the most part confess that, 
even if we can reduce everything to matter, yet we cannot know 
what matter is in itself. Thus La Mettrie, Holbach, Cabanis, 
not to speak of the wild, rambling inconsistencies of the most 
recent writers (Biichner, Moleschott). 

But what we have here urged against materialism, is not the 
epistemological inconsistency exhibited in its desire that conscious 
life shall recognize, as the absolutely original and only reality, 

1 Ch. Robin, e.g. defines " sensibilite " as follows (Anaf. et Physiol. Cellulaire)^ p. 
540,- " Ce mode de la nevrilite est characterise par ce fait, que les elements nerveux qui 
en jouissent, apres avoir regu une impression du dehors, la transmettent de ce point a un 
autre ou ils (jzV) la perqoivent." A similar mode of expression is employed by Broussais. 
But what idea is really conveyed by nervous elements perceiving and apprehending 
anything ? 



62 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [il 

something which is given only as an object of consciousness, and 
which can be represented and recognized only through the activity 
proper to consciousness. Our task is only to find out to what 
view the given facts impel us ; and the result of our criticism of 
materialism is that it offends against the conceptions derived from 
experience itself. 

{c) In treating of monistic spiritualism^ as the third possible 
hypothesis, we must always hold fast the distinction between a pheno- 
menological and a metaphysical way of looking at things. Very many 
confusions relative to the problem before us are the result of over- 
looking this distinction. Spirituahsm, like materialism, has almost 
always confounded metaphysical and empirical results. Monistic 
spiritualism is the view according to which the mind is a mental 
(geistige) substance, and the mental is the only reality ; everything 
material, all movement in space, is but an outer form of a mental 
life. Through this last view monistic spiritualism is distinguished 
from the dualistic spiritualism introduced by Descartes. It is 
based on the impossibility of explaining the mental by the 
material, and on the fact partly overlooked, partly undervalued, by 
materialism, that our conception of matter is a mental product, 
and that, apart from our conception of it, we do not know what 
matter is. Thus the spiritual or mental is a^m/i", a pre-supposition, 
on which all thought rests ; and a reasonable hypothesis is formed 
only by the reduction of the less known to the better known. The 
mental is properly the only thing fully intelhgible to us, for in it 
we have not only a knowledge of outward circumstances and rela- 
tions {cogfiitio circa rem), but a knowledge also of the thing itself 
{cognitio rei). 

But even supposing all this to be true, it is not to the .point. For 
if it be granted that everything is mental, and that nothing exists 
except thoughts and ideas, there still remains a distinction between 
ideas of material movement and ideas of phenomena of conscious- 
ness ; and thus again arises the problem how these different sets of 
ideas, which have arisen in accordance with experience, are to be 
combined. In other words, the empirical problem is independent 
of the metaphysical. We do not here examine whether mind or 
matter is the most fundamental ; we inquire in what way mental 
and material phenomena are connected in that experience, which 
every system of metaphysics consciously or unconsciously pre- 
supposes. 

Hermann Lotze, the most distinguished representative of spirit- 



II] MIND AND BODY 63 

ualism in modern philosophy, has with great clearness emphasized 
the distinction between phenomenological (or occasionalistic, as he 
called it in his earlier writings) and metaphysical investigation. 
He did not, however, hold fast by this distinction, but on the 
contrary put it arbitrarily aside. 

Lotze is one of the writers who in modern times have with the 
greatest energy defended the mechanical conception of organic 
phenomena, and have upheld the claims of the notion of mechanism 
to dominate our entire explanation of nature. It is the more note- 
worthy, that he struggles against the admission of the full consequence 
of the doctrine of the conservation of energy. '' Physicists," he says 
in one of his earlier works {Allg. PhysioL p. 461) "appear to be 
convinced that every spatial-temporal movement of masses can be 
neutralised only by another similar and contrary movement, and 
hence has arisen the problem, to trace every movement, when once 
it has been started, through all changes of forms, to its final pas- 
sage out of the organism into the external world, or to the point 
where it is destroyed by a contrary movement. I am not fully con- 
vinced of the perfect correctness of this fundamental doctrine ; 
I know of no convincing reason supplied by the principles of 
natural philosophy, wherewith to confront the possibility that 
spatial movements may be absorbed by passing into intensive states 
of the realJ^ The point at which this passage from the spatial to the 
non-spatial world takes place is that at which, according to a later 
utterance {Mikrokosjnus^ 2nd ed. i. p. 326, Eng. trans, i. p. 290) we 
must look for the seat of the mind. In his later work {Three Books 
of Metaphysics)^ the last gift permitted to us from this able in- 
quirer, he speaks more precisely as to his position with regard to 
the law of the persistence of energy. He lays emphasis on the fact 
that in itself this law expresses only an equivalence of the manifesta- 
tions of force, promises only a certain compensation for energy 
that ceases to act, and says nothing as to what kind of energy this 
is. He thinks, therefore, it is not impossible to apply the law to a 
case in which a mental energy takes the place of a physical, or con- 
versely. Phenomenologically^ he thus places himself at the stand- 
point of the natural interaction, and in so far as he does so, his 
theory falls to the ground through the objections already urged 
against this doctrine. (See pp. 55-59.) But he does not remain at the 
phenomenological standpoint. The distinction between spiritual and 
material phenomena is for him only the starting-point ; the spiritual 
— as he tries to prove by metaphysical arguments— is the only reality ; 



64 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

material phenomena are merely manifestations of the interaction of 
spiritual elements ; and a transition from that spiritual essence 
which forms the foundation of material phenomena, to that spiritual 
essence which reveals itself in the phenomena of consciousness, 
offers no theoretical difficulties ; the difference in kind, the want of 
a common measure, is got over by metaphysical reflection. Lotze's 
theory, like the Cartesian, is a doctrine of interaction, but supposes 
an interaction between spiritual substances ; not, as with Decartes, 
between a spiritual and a material substance. 

It is not easy to understand why at this point Lotze calls meta- 
physics to his aid if in the principle of the conservation of energy 
there is no obstacle to the doctrine of interaction. Here is an evident 
inconsistency in Lotze^s theory, an inconsistency due to over-hasty 
interest in the defence of an idealistic conception of the universe. 
It is quite possible to agree with Lotze in his fundamental meta- 
physical thought, according to which the material is in its inner- 
most essence of the same nature as that which stirs in our 
consciousness, without agreeing with him in his application of this 
fundamental thought to the theory of the relation between mind 
and body. That fundamental thought has so profound a 
philosophical significance that it may well be maintained without 
necessarily prejudicing the leading conceptions of experiential 
science. 

(d) Only the fourth possibility, then seems to be left. If it is 
contrary to the doctrine of the conservation of physical energy to 
suppose a transition from the one province to the other, and if, never- 
theless, the two provinces exist in our experience as distinct, then 
the two sets of phenomena must be unfolded simultaneously, each 
according to its laws ; so that for every phenomenon in the world of 
consciousness there is a corresponding phenomenon in the world of 
matter, and conversely (so far as there is reason to suppose that 
conscious life is correlated with material phenomena). The parallels 
already drawn point directly to such a relation ; it would be an amaz- 
ing accident, if, while the characteristic marks repeated themselves 
in this way, there were not at the foundation an inner connection. 
Both Xh^ parallelism and \h.Q proportionality between the activity of 
consciousness and cerebral activity point to an identity at bottom. 
The difference which remains in spite of the points of agreement, 
compels us to suppose that one and the same principle has found 
its expression in a double form. We have no right to take mind 
and body for two beings or substances in reciprocal interaction. We 



II] MIND AND BODY 65 

are, on the contrary, impelled to conceive the material interaction 
between the elements composing the brain and nervous system, as 
an outer form of the ijiner ideal icnity of consciousness. What 
we in our inner experience become conscious of as thought, feeling 
and resolution, is thus represented in the material world by certain 
material processes of the brain, which as such are subject to the 
law of the conservation of energy, although this law cannot be 
appHed to the relation between cerebral and conscious processes. 
It is as though the same thing were said in two languages. 

Experience alone can determine whether the two forms are 
co-extensive. We have already touched on the difficulty of finding 
the lower limit of consciousness ; the next chapter will afford us an 
opportunity of taking up the question again. On the other hand, 
there are still some who hold that the noblest manifestations of 
mind are not linked to material processes. That sensuous per- 
ception, and so-called physical pleasure and pain, are linked with 
certain nervous processes, no one will dispute ; it is only for higher 
phenomena of consciousness that it is thought necessary to adopt 
a completely new principle. But even the general account 
of consciousness already given, suffices to show the impossibility 
of drawing a boundary line between a lower and a higher. 
The same type prevails from the simplest to the highest forms. 
Far as the ideal world of thoughts and feelings appears exalted 
above the series of single, momentary sensations, it is yet the 
same principle which prevails in both ; only the degree of develop- 
ment is different, not the plan of the structure or the material. 
The subsequent special psychological inquiries will bring this 
out more clearly. 

As sharp limits cannot be drawn between a lower (sensuous) and 
a higher (spiritual) content, each with its own conditions of 
existence, so it is not permissible to regard the matter or content of 
consciousness as bound up with physical processes, while the 
formative and elaborating mental activity is supposed to have no 
physical parallels. While the individual sensations, in the opinion 
even of the strictest spiritualists, are connected with physiological 
processes, many think it is impossible to believe this of the activity 
whereby sensations are compared and judged. But, as will sub- 
sequently be shown, it is not possible to preserve a hard and 
fast line between what is given and its working up, between an 
absolute content and the relations which arise between the con- 
stituents of this content. Even in the simplest percept, at the 

F 



66 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [il 

very threshold of consciousness, we find the result of a mental 
activity, a combining of elements into unity, a synthesis. An 
absolutely simple state would not be conscious. At no point, then, 
can matter and form be separated. The physiological connection 
and interaction between the extraordinarily numerous brain-centres 
afford, moreover, ample ground for the belief that not only the 
mental elements, but also their combinations, have their physical 
expression. 

In the mental as in the material world, we hold fast to the law 
of continuity. The identity hypothesis regards these worlds as two 
manifestations of one and the same being, both given in experience. 
The two languages, in which the same thought is here expressed, 
we are not able to trace back to a common original language. 
Moreover, so long as we keep strictly to experience, the one 
province is presented to us as a fragment, while the other ex- 
tends to infinity in uninterrupted sequence. The doctrine of the 
conservation of energy makes the material world into a totality, 
which we indeed can never measure, but in which the fate of the 
individual forms and elements can be traced. The mental world 
has no corresponding law to exhibit. Mental elements come and 
go in experience, without our being able to point to an equivalent, 
which in the first instance would be used up, in the last would 
serve as compensation. The fact that mental states cannot be 
measured like physical energies and chemical substances, is in 
itself sufficient to frustrate the hope of our finding a mental 
parallel to the doctrine of the conservation of force. But in addition 
to this, even the fundamental conception of a mental existence 
puts difficulties in the way. Material existences can pass one into 
another, so that the energy lost in the one is preserved in the 
other. The doctrine of the conservation of energy shows us the 
unity and eternity of nature during the coming and going 
of all material beings. But mental existence, as has been seen, 
has for its fundamental form, memory, synthesis; and synthesis 
presupposes iitdividuality. The material world shows us no real 
individualities ; these are first known to the psychological stand- 
point, from which inner centres of memory, action, and endurance 
are discovered. If now we conceived of the individual mental 
elements (sensations, thoughts, feelings, etc.) as capable of being 
transposed to other combinations, like chemical atoms, it would 
follow that they might have an existence apart from a definite 
individual consciousness, a supposition which our account of con- 



ii] MIND AND BODY 67 

sciousness shows to be absurd. Sensations, thoughts and feelings 
are mental activities, which cannot persist when the definite in- 
dividual connection, in which they occur, has come to an end. They 
correspond to the organic functions, but not to the chemical elements. 
If the organism is resolved into its elements, organic function is 
impossible. The mental individuality has its physical expression 
in the sum of energy which the organism, in the germ and through- 
out its development, has at its disposal, and in the organic 
(especially the nervous) form in which this energy is applied. 

The theory to which we are here led is not a complete solution 
of the problem of the relation between mind and body. It is only 
an empirical formula, an indication of the manner in which the 
relation presents itself provisionally, when, following the hint of 
experience, we take heed of the close connection between the 
mental and the material and the impossibihty of a reduction of 
the one to the other, together with the difficulties attending the 
notion of a transition from the one to the other. Concerning the 
inner relation between mind and matter, v/e teach nothing ; we 
suppose only that 07ie being works in both. But what kind of being 
is this '^. Why has it a double form of manifestation, why does not 
one form suffice } These are questions which lie beyond the realm 
of our knowledge. Mind and matter appear to us as an irreducible 
duality, just as subject and object. We therefore postpone the 
consideration of the question. And this is not only justifiable but 
even necessary, since it is evident that the question lies in reality 
far deeper than is usually supposed. 

It would be a misinterpretation of the identity-hypothesis to 
explain it as if it regarded the material as that vv^hich really 
exists, and the mental as a superfluous addition. The hypothesis, 
as here given, does not enter into the question whether mind or 
matter is the fundamental part of existence. It pronounces only 
that the same power which lives, expands, and takes form in 
the outer world of the material, also discloses itself in its inner 
world as thinking, feeling and willing. In asking after the inner 
connection between the physical and the mental worlds, we stand 
at the limit of our knowledge, and as yet no conception whatever 
has answered the question of the place of the mental life in 
the scheme of things, except by a teleological postulate, which 
it is not the business of psychology to investigate. So much 
only is certain, that if we are right in admitting this duality, 
there must be a reason for it. This is not the only instance 

F 2 



68 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

in our experience, where we are obliged to accept a connection as 
given in fact, without being able to establish its necessity. 

The empirical formula, with which we here end, does not 
exclude a more comprehensive metaphysical hypothesis. The 
fundamental notion of idealism, that the mental stands closest 
to the innermost essence of existence, may be very well com- 
bined with the empirical acceptance of the identity-hypothesis. 
As empirical formula, this says nothing as to the question 
whether the two forms of being are absolute or possess validity 
apart from the human point of view. Spinoza's doctrine that 
mind and matter are two equally eternal and infinite attributes 
of the absolute substance, was an over-hasty metaphysics. The 
absolute substance is not known by us, and we cannot therefore 
know whether mind and matter are equally essential to it. On 
the contrary, the theory of knowledge leads us to regard the 
phenomena of consciousness as the most fundamental facts in our 
experience, since, looked at logically, the subjective point of view 
is deeper than the objective. P>om this point of view the most 
natural conception is that which regards the mental life as the 
essential, and the corresponding cerebral activity as the form in 
which it is manifested to sensuous intuition. All the same, we have 
no right to maintain with _ monistic spiritualism, that spiritual 
existence expresses the innermost essence of being. There may be 
infinitely more forms of existence than the two which alone we know, 
and which, because they are the only two known to us, we are 
disposed to regard as the only forms possible. 

It may therefore easily lead to misunderstandings, to describe 
the identity-hypothesis as "new Spinozism." It is, indeed, con- 
nected with Spinoza's name ; it is to him that the honour is due of 
having first propounded the theory, and so advanced beyond the 
conflicting materialistic and spiritualistic theories. To this he 
was impelled by three different motives. In the first place, he 
wished to remove all imperfect notions from the idea of the 
infinite essence ; nothing besides this was to exist, nothing that 
was not penetrated by it ; matter, therefore, could not be an 
external limit, but must be a special form of its manifestation. 
But besides this rcligio-philosophical or metaphysical motive, his 
conviction of the uninterrupted connection of the physical causal 
series also influenced him. If mental activity cannot interfere 
with this causal series, nothing remains but to suppose that the 
mental and material activities do not take the place of one another, 



ir] MIND AND BODY 69 

but are carried on simultaneously (i-/;;??//;^(7///r^), especially as they 
cannot be reduced to a common measure. Spinoza anticipated 
the victorious march of the mechanical conception of nature ; 
perceived that Galileo and Descartes had laid down principles 
under which the whole of material nature would have to be 
arranged. Finally, Spinoza based his theory on empirical grounds. 
Although for him as a speculative philosopher the question was 
doubtless settled on the two a /r/<^r/ grounds, still he thought that 
people " would scarcely consider the question calmly '^ if he did 
not adduce proofs from experience. He pointed, then, partly to 
the purposive way in which the body can act, even when 
consciousness is not present, as in instinctive movements and 
somnambulant states, partly to the proportionality between states 
of the mind and of the body, partly to the analogy between the 
psychological and the organic systems.-^ 

The theory propounded by Spinoza has, under different forms, 
held its place in philosophy ever since his time. Leibniz main- 
tained with Spinoza, that thoughts are to be explained by thoughts, 
movements by movements ; only, on the basis of this parallelism, 
he undertook a more far-reaching reduction in the idealistic 
direction. Kant^ hinted at the identity-hypothesis in the first 
edition of the Critique of Pure Reaso7t, although in the second 
edition he altered his earlier, more consistent conception in this 
as in other respects.- After the time of Kant it is found with 
more or less clearness and consistency in the speculative direction 
(Schelling, Hegel) as well as in the critical-empirical (Fries, 
Beneke). In Danish literature it makes its appearance with 
Treschow and F. C. Sibbcrn. And it is found in a whole series 
of philosophers and students of nature of the present day. More 
particularly Fechner must be mentioned, as the first ^ who based 
the theory of the relation between the mental and the material 
on consequences deduced from the principle of the conservation of 
energy. 

Here this hypothesis interests us as the most natural determina- 
tion of the relation between physiology and psychology. These 
two sciences deal with the same matter seen from two different 
sides, and there can no more be dispute between them, than 

1 Cf. my hook, Spinoza's Liv. og Ldre ("Spinoza's Life and Teaching"), (Copen- 
hagen, 1877), pp. 89-100, 

'^ Cf. Kritik der rcinen ye7'nu7ift (Kehrbach's Ausgabe), pp. 206, 320, and 340, 
with p. 699. Cf. Vaihinger in Strassbnrger Philosophische Stndien^ p. 151 seq. 

^ Eleinente der Psychofhysik^ 7860, 



70 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [ii 

between the observer of the convex and the oljserver of the 
concave side of a curve (to make use of a simile employed by 
Fechner). Every phenomenon of consciousness gives occasion 
for a twofold inquiry. Now the psychical, now the physical, 
side of the phenomenon is most accessible to us ; but this does 
not affect the principle of the relation of the two sides to one 
another. 



Ill 

THE CONSCIOUS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 

In the preceding account of mental life, stress has been 
laid on two chief distinguishing traits — on the occurrence of a 
change, through which new elements of consciousness emerge, 
and on the connection between all elements of consciousness. 
If this account is correct, then consciousness may cease from 
two causes : either because the individual elements do not possess 
strength enough to make themselves felt, or because the connec- 
tion between them ceases. 

So long as we adhere strictly to the principle that the mind is 
known only through the manifestations of consciousness, the 
province of mental life is not widely extended. Nerve-processes 
are not all of the kind which we have reason to think accompanied 
by consciousness, and even those with which this is the case 
may be carried on without consciousness, if their intensity is not 
sufficiently great. 

Thus a physical stimulus may take effect on the nervous system 
without a sensation arising ; the sensation arises only when the 
stimulus has reached a certain strength. The nerve-process, on 
the other hand, must begin at lower degrees of stimulation, and 
has thus already reached a certain strength when the sensation 
crosses the threshold of consciousness. Let .r, for example, 
denote the degree of strength of a nerve-process, which is just 
strong enough for a scarcely preceptible sensation, which we will 
call jK, to correspond to it. We then have a peculiar relation : 
while the degrees of strength on the physical side continuously 
decrease from x downwards, the psychical side remains empty, 
stops suddenly at y. This is how the relation presents itself, 



72 ' OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [iii 

whatever fundamental conception as to the relation between the 
mental and material we start from. It is the same with combina- 
tion as with degree of strength ; for there is only a difference of 
degree between the structure and mode of action of the lower 
and the structure and mode of action of the higher cells. Now 
is it probable that at a certain stage of the scale a something should 
arise which did not exist at all at the lower stages ? If the series 
in the one sphere is continuous, must it not be supposed to be 
so in the other? We have no right to assume that there are 
chinks or gaps anywhere in nature ; at any rate the advances of 
knowledge principally consist in the filling up and connecting of 
interstices and clefts. 

The question J^fore us is, whether the unconscious can be other 
than a purely negative conception. In daily speech (and, more 
than is proper, even in the scientific use of language) we use 
such expressions as unconscious sensations, unconscious ideas, 
unconscious feelings. As, however, sensations, ideas, and feelings 
are elements of consciousness, the expression is in reality absurd. 
If by an unconscious idea is meant an idea which I have^ then the 
predicate " unconscious '^ signifies only, that I do not think of or 
pay heed to the fact that I have it. This use of the word uncon- 
sciousness is connected with a twofold use of the word conscious- 
ness. It is used to denote not only the inner presentation of 
our sensations, ideas, and feelings, but also self-consciousness, 
the attention expressly directed to our sensations, ideas, and 
feelings. We have, of course, many sensations and ideas without 
being conscious that we have them ; many feelings and impulses 
stir within us, without our clearly apprehending their nature and 
direction. In this sense we can speak, for example, of unconscious 
love ; a man who has this feeling does not know what is astir in 
him ; perhaps others see it, or he himself gradually discovers it ; 
but he has the feeling, his conscious life is determined in a 
particular way. 

In desiring to examine here, however, the relation between the 
conscious and the unconscious, we understand by unconsciousness 
a state which lies below the threshold of our consciousness in 
general (not merely of our self-consciousness). We wish to ex- 
amine whether it may not be shown that the unconscious is related 
to the conscious, and the difference on the psychical as well as on 
the physical side consequently one of degree only. But for the 
present we take it as a purely negative conception. It is not the 



Ill] THE CONSCIOUS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 73 

intention to follow Edward v. Hartmann in the mystical paths which 
he believes he has opened up in his Philosophie des Unbewussten 
(" Philosophy of the Unconscious^'). Hartmann not only without 
more ado makes the unconscious into a positive conception, but 
also uses it as an explanatory principle wherever he thinks that the 
physical and the psychological causal series fail. Psychology is on 
secure ground only when it confines itself to the clear and certain 
phenomena and laws of consciousness. But starting from this 
standpoint, it discovers the unconscious, and sees to its astonish- 
ment that psychological laws prevail beyond the province of 
conscious life. In what follows we shall adduce some examples 
to make this clear.^ 

2. Reference has repeatedly been made to memory as the typical 
phenomenon of consciousness. But memory presupposes change 
in the elements of consciousness. Now what becomes of the ideas 
that have disappeared, in the interval before their recall ? In 
daily conversation the memory appears as a storehouse or treasure- 
chamber, where ideas are saved up for future use. It is only 
figuratively ^that actual existence can be in this way attributed 
to the ideas which have disappeared from consciousness. But the 
remarkable fact is, that it seems as if, nevertheless, they played a 
part in the actual activity of consciousness. If we want to recall 
something that is in our memory, and cannot come upon it, it is a 
well-known resource to leave off the search for it, and to think of 
quite different things ; then the idea wanted may suddenly emerge. 
Here we give up the conscious search, and allow instead an 
absolutely unconscious process to begin. The case is similar 
when we have collected materials for some work, as e.g. the treat- 
ment of a scientific question. We are then often so overwhelmed 
by details, as to be unable to arrange and combine the matter. Here 
again occupation with quite different matters may be a good resource. 
In the midst of the new activity, the proper mode of treating the 
question may suddenly, as of its own accord, present itself to 
consciousness. Unconscious action has effected what conscious, 
direct, and strenuous work might never perhaps have succeeded in. 
Of course such results are never obtained in sleep ; strenuous work 
is presupposed, the unconscious operation crowns the labour. 

Some psychologists explain phenomena of this kind quite simply, 

1 In Carpenter, Mental Physiology, p. 515 seq., there are a great number of examples. 
Some of those quoted in what follows above, are taken from this collection. Benecke 
in the first chapter of his Psychologischen Skizzen (Gottingen, 1827), has inquired 
with great acuteness into the relation between the conscious and the unconscious. 



74 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [iii 

by the greater freshness of the brain and mind, when a thing has 
been " slept upon.'' But this explanation can apply only to cases in 
which the question is directly taken up again after the break, not to 
those in which the abandoned subject suddenly, in the midst of 
occupation with other matters, presents itself to thought in a 
perfectly clear light. Here the subject has in the interval undergone 
further treatment, but this treatment has taken place below the 
threshold of consciousness ; it has been carried on in us, not by 
us. And yet this unconscious working bears the impress of the 
same principles and laws that control conscious working. 

3. What is true in this way of many of our thoughts, is true 
also — as has been proved by the physiology of the senses — of our 
apparently simple and immediate sensations and percepts. We 
make for ourselves a continuous visual image, although in the 
retina there is a point (the blind spot) which receives no excitation. 
Many of our sensations of colour which we regard as immediate, 
are determined by the effect of contrast with other colours. The 
conception of space, which discloses itself to us at 07te stroke^ has 
arisen by the combination of diverse impressions. Our two eyes 
have not the same range of vision, and yet we imagine that with 
both eyes we survey the binocular range of vision immediately. 
We judge the direction of the line of sight (according to Helmholtz) 
by the effort of will with which we try to alter the position of the 
eyes. But of all these combinations we are not conscious, and 
when it is said that our sensuous percepts are results of 
"unconscious inferences,^^ it must be carefully noted that this 
expression is permissible only because we have no means of 
denoting these processes, known to us only by their results, except 
by expressions derived by analogy from the higher conscious life.^ 
We employ here a sort of inverted anthropomorphism. 

4. Not only may conscious results come from unconscious 
working up, but there may also be unconscious intermediate links 
in the midst of conscious work. Supposing the idea a to be linked 
with the idea b^ and b again with <:, then a will finally produce c 
directly, without the intervention of b. A proposition, which we 
have learned to understand by way of proof, remains in our 
consciousness after we have forgotten the proof. All education 

1 Helmholtz, Physiologische Optik, p. 811. Afterwards Helmholtz avoided the use 0/ 
this expression on account of the misuse made of it by Schopenhauer and Hartmann. But 
he still adheres to the position that we have here to do with an elementary process, which 
lies at the bottom of all thought properly so-called. ' ' Die Thatsachen in der Wahr- 
nehmun^''' (The Facts of Perception) (Berlin, 1873), p. 27 seq. 



iiij THE CONSCIOUS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 75 

rests on the possibility of the intermediate Hnks thus sinking below 
^' the threshold." The authority of the educator is at first indis- 
pensable, but gradually falls into the background. The inter- 
mediate links are often so numerous, that they cannot be recovered 
at all, or only with great difficulty. Many psychological paradoxes 
and sudden suggestions have their explanation in this unconscious 
determining of conscious ideas. 

5. Everything that we call instinct, tact, self-acquired or innate 
disposition operates in this way. Habits and tendencies which we 
have acquired or yielded to, or which are bequeathed to us from 
earlier generations, endure long after the causes of them have passed 
away. The ideas, feelings and actions, to which these tendencies 
lead, do not receive a complete explanation in the conscious life 
itself. There are always intermediate links which are passed over, 
and can be discovered only by physiological and sociological 
research. The conscious motives have passed away, but their effects 
remain. Instinct therefore has been defined as an acting for ends 
of which we are not conscious. Conscious effort is partially 
determined by unconscious motives, and leaves behind it un- 
conscious effects. In the individual as in nations, sudden 
revolutions avail but little ; below the surface tendencies persist, 
which it takes time to overcome. Thus it was necessary for 
the Israelites to wander forty years in the wilderness. Herodotus 
relates (iv. 3, 4) how the slaves of the Scythians, while their 
masters were away on distant expeditions, had married their 
women and secured supremacy. When the masters returned, they 
could not by force of arms subdue the young generation that had 
sprung from these marriages, but obtained their submission so soon 
as they cracked the whips which ordinarily served for the punish- 
ment of slaves. This narrative may serve at any rate as a poetical 
representation of the force of inherited habit. — In the lives of 
eminent and leading men, we often see how they have to struggle to 
overcome what the im^pressions of youth and habit have implanted. 

Every mental revolution disturbs at first only that which stirs in 
clear consciousness ; the unconscious undercurrents may long 
pursue their course, without being reached by the movement of the 
surface.^ The reaction after a revolution often discloses how little 

1 In H. Brochner's treatise, Om Udvikhngsgangeni Filoso/iens Historie ("On the 
Course of Development in the History of Philosophy"), (Copenhagenj 1869), will be 
found many interesting indications of the way in which ideas may unconsciously influence 
their advocates ; even their opponents, in the age which has produced them. See also his 
paper in Nyt da?isk Maanedsskrift (New Danish Monthly, 187 1), on the relation 
between the conscious and the unconscious. 



^^ OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [iii 

real hold the movement has obtained. What has been consciously- 
attained has not taken real root until it operates unconsciously 
or, as we say, has become part of the flesh and blood. Conscious 
work acts as pioneer ; but it is also important that the unconscious 
machinery should be set in motion. — Conversely, we may prac- 
tise something quite mechanically, which afterwards gradually 
gains control over consciousness. Forced conversion may lead to 
zealous faith, if not in the same generation, yet in later generations. 
Compulsion works against that of which there is clear conscious- 
ness ; so that compulsory conversion succeeds only where no such 
consciousness is as yet developed. But mechanical exercise may 
gradually weaken consciousness. We are, according to Pascal's 
expression, automata as well as spirits, wherefore Pascal counsels 
us to begin with taking holy water and observing ceremonies ; 
the rest will come of itself. This is his notorious principle : 
Ilfaut s'abetir. 

6. An unconscious activity may be carried on simultaneously 
with a conscious. The spinner turns the wheel and draws out 
the thread, while all her thoughts are far away. A reader may 
be wholly absorbed in the contents of the book or even in other 
thoughts, while he sees the letters and pronounces the words 
corresponding to them. In these instances the subordinate action 
at any rate approximates to the unconscious, and there can be 
little question that the boundary-line may be crossed. And yet 
that which has thus taken place unconsciously, may afterwards 
assert itself in consciousness. Fechner relates {Elemente der 
Psychophysik^ ii. p. 432), that one morning in bed he was surprised 
by having a white image of the stove-pipe, when he closed his 
eyes. As he lay with his eyes open and speculated, he had seen 
before him, without being conscious of it, a black stove-pipe with 
a white wall as background, and what now made its appearance 
was the negative after-image of this.^ The physical excitation 
had thus been of such a nature, that the visual sensation might 
have arisen ; but the attention being otherwise engaged, what 
appeared to consciousness was not the sensation itself, but only 
the more impressive after-image. In like manner, when we listen 
in a state of abstraction to some one speaking to us, we may not 
until long afterwards become conscious of what he has said. 
It is only by the express direction of attention that the im- 
pressions unconsciously received are here raised above "the 

1 I have myself had an exactly similar experience, 



Ill] THE CONSCIOUS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 77 

threshold/' That we are able to remember something is therefore 
no decisive proof that we consciously apprehended it at the time 
of its occurrence. By connection with that which has been 
consciously apprehended, even an unconscious impression may 
be called to memory.^ 

7. Unconscious impressions play an especially large part in 
the development of the feelings. Feeling is determined not 
only by clear and distinct sensations and ideas, but also by 
imperceptible influences, the sum of which only takes effect in 
consciousness. Hence the mystical and inexplicable character 
of so many feelings ; especially when first excited are they in- 
comprehensible even to the individual himself, since he does not 
know their definite causes. The vital feeling results from the 
effect of the organic functions on the brain ; but the single im- 
pressions do not here stand out clearly, but combine to produce an 
obscure and changing background of well-being or discomfort. 
The feeling of love has, especially in its first dawning, a mystical 
character due to the arousing of uncomprehended organic instincts, 
and to the influence of these on the vital feeling and on the 
imagination. There is something of the sort even in other feelings, 
since we are never fully conscious of the influence of our experiences 
and the conditions of life on our state of feehng, until the feeling 
acquires a distinctly marked character or even perhaps breaks 
forth in actions. Such influences are like the air we breathe 
without thinking of it. They occasion within us a quiet growth 
which is often the most important and decisive factor in the 
mental life. This points us back to the general condition of 
conscious hfe and of nerve-process, that only a more or less 
sudden change arouses either to activity. A slowly increasing 
application of heat or of electricity may cause the death of a frog, 
without its ever stirring from the spot. 

In the history of individuals and of the race, inner connection 
is preserved by means of this unconscious growth, which 
determines a great part of the content and of the energy of con- 
scious life. It is only when attention is confined to the distinctly 
marked states of consciousness, that there appear to be sharp 

scWni\-r?f .^^T^'^^'^^if /*?r^''-'^'^>'^^'' ^ogennanter Bew7csstlosigkeit ("Of Con- 
sciousness m States of so-called Unconsciousness"), (Stuttgart, 1877, p 10) • "There mav 

eJenTaSr^r^?''"^^' ""^ "'-^^^^^^^^ unc'iLiouf, a^ w^'enf 4- *of a serieTo^f 
state ;ndfmm,>?r ''Tf ^"^^ ^^psciousness, the last member joins on to a conscious 
in so^nt ll • ^^""^^ series IS raised by reproduction into consciousness ; or when, 

statr.nH ^l7°"'T?f ^'^' '^^ ^'^'" [' ^i^vos^^. somewhat as it was in an unconscious 
state, and the correlated processes are then reproduced as conscious, as memory." 



78 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [in 

lines of demarcation and sudden revolutions ; far below, infinitely 
ramified connections are discovered. So the coral-zoophytes build 
always below the surface of the sea, and what they build is not 
discovered until it rises above the sea-level. 

Leibniz was the first to call attention to the significance of the 
infinitesimal elements in psychology (as also in mathematics and 
physics). He brought this view into connection, moreover, with 
the law of continuity so energetically maintained by him. By 
means of unconscious impressions (v/hich he called petites fer- 
ceptions) he explained the connection of the single individual with 
the universe, a relation which is much closer than the individual 
is himself clearly conscious of ; and he also employs them to ex- 
plain the way in which the past determines, and is continued in, 
the future.^ 

8. In the state of dream we have an intermediate stage between 
the purely unconscious and the conscious state. The analogy ex- 
hibited between the dream-consciousness and the waking con- 
sciousness, may so far throw light on the relation between the 
conscious and the unconscious. 

Sleeping and waking are usually contrasted as strict opposites. 
But just as in the waking state there are innumerable degrees of 
energy, clearness and connection of consciousness, so there are 
many shades of transition from waking to sleep, and conversely ; 
and there are also different degrees of sleep. Thus the following 
descending stages in the scale of psychical energy have been dis- 
tinguished : (i) Dreaming in a half-dozing state; (2) the light 
morning sleep with vivid dreams ; (3) deep sleep with obscure, 
fluctuating dream-images ; (4) the deepest sleep without dreams (?) ; 
and (5) a yet lower degree experienced in illness, the state of 
lethargy or fever-sleep.'-^ The deepest sleep is that which we have 
immediately after falling asleep. The question whether we always 
have dreams, receives different answers. Those who believe 
this to be the case, appeal partly to metaphysical arguments— 
that the mind cannot from its nature refrain from activity ; partly 
to physiological— that movements must go on continuously in the 
brain, and that impressions must be continuously received. It 
is at any rate clear, that dreaming is a step closer to waking life 
than dreamless sleep, if there be such a thing.^ 

"^ opera Philosophica,Y.d..Y.r6sa:xx\xi,^. K^-j. , _ , ^,, ^ , /o. i u i^ 

^ P. Hedenius, " Om Dromen" {Vetenskap for alla\ Bd III. pp. 609-611 (Stockholm 
1880). 
3 [C/ Sully (^Illusions, pp. 132-134-) (Tr.)] 



m] THE CONSCIOUS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 79 

The connection of the dream-consciousness with the waking 
consciousness is shown, in the first place, by the fact that the 
dream-consciousness is frequently occupied with that which is the 
object of waking interest. Difficulties and annoyances, which were 
insuperable in a waking state, are overcome or thought to be over- 
come in dreams, while on the other hand familiar and simple 
situations present inconceivable and insuperable difficulties. In 
the next place, the elements of which the world of dreams is com- 
posed are for the most part derived from the experiences of waking 
life, though these are brought into new, often fantastic, com- 
binations. During sleep, however, impressions are continuously 
received not only from within the organism (from the respiratory 
and digestive organs), but also from without (impressions of touch, 
sound, light, etc.). The connection with the external world is thus 
not entirely broken. Now, these impressions are interwoven with 
the after-effects of waking life, into a new world of images. But the 
formation of this new world takes place under conditions which 
differ from those of the waking state. There is lacking that firm 
concentration of attention and the universal control, v/hich waking 
life calls out or imposes. Individual impressions, especially the 
organic sensations, obtain in consequence a power which thrusts 
unity and continuity aside. A free and bold interpretation of 
each individual impression is the result. Dreams acquire what 
has been appropriately called a mythological character. If the 
breathing is unusually easy and free, we think we are flying ; 
if It is difficult, we are oppressed with nightmare. If the sleeper 
becomes cold through losing the bedclothes, he finds himself 
on a journey to the north pole or promenading the streets naked. 
A man who had a hot-water bottle at his feet dreamt he was 
walking on the crater of Mount Etna. Often a most complicated 
event is constructed to explain some quite simple impression, as 
when the falhng of a curtain and the appearance of light in the 
room calls up a dream of the day of judgment depicted with a host 
of details^ 

In the waking state also we explain individual impressions 
according to their relation to our other experiences. The 
dream-consciousness follows the same method, often with great 
mgenuity and great perseverance, and with a certain artistic 
capacity ; but it cannot as a rule keep individual impressions under 
control; each several impression sets up its special current of 

1 [Cf. Sully {Illusions, pp. 135-155.) (Tr.)] 



8o OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [iii 

thought, which then takes possession of the entire conscious- 
ness, until it is dislodged by the next impression. There is not 
sufficient power of resistance against the individual elements. 
Hence the shifting and disorderly nature of dreams, resembling 
insanity, which is also a state of disorganization. It is possible 
even that many dream-images arise without being determined by 
sensuous impressions, quite automatically ; but even to this there 
is something corresponding in waking states, namely in hallucina- 
tions and sudden suggestions."^ 

The dream-state shows us, then, psychological laws in operation, 
but below the threshold of consciousness proper. It is a station on 
the road from unconscious to conscious life. 

9. In the act of awaking there are sometimes circumstances 
which may throw light on the relation between the conscious and 
the unconscious. When we are awaked, it is not always the 
physical strength of the stimulus which determines the event, but 
its relation to the weal and woe of the individual, to his waking 
interests, what Burdach^ has called the psychical relation of 
the stimulus. An indifferent word softly spoken does not rouse 
from sleep ; but a mother will wake at her child's slightest move- 
ment. A very avaricious man was awakened by a coin being 
placed in his hand. A naval officer who slept in spite of a great 
tumult, awoke at the whispering of the word " signal." To con- 
clude from such cases with Burdach, that the mind during sleep 
distinguishes sensuous percepts, is not admissible ; on the con- 
trary, they point to the view that an individual impression attains 
to consciousness only by connection with other experiences. It 
sets free a whole series of effects in the brain, and therewith 
consciousness is given. The act of awaking, which is transition 
from an at least relatively unconscious to a conscious state, is 
brought about by the individual impression obtaining, by com- 
bination with other impressions, the background it requires, in 
order to become conscious. It accords with this, that consciousness 
is apparently connected with very complex nerve-organs, in which 
many currents may meet together. 

This circumstance may perhaps throw some light on a psycho- 
logical paradox already mentioned— that a perfectly simple^ and 
unattached sensation cannot be conscious, and on the associated 
difficulty of representing the beginning of consciousness. This 

■^[Cf.SnWy {Illusions, vV-T-S^-^^3-) (Tr.)]. , ^ , ^.^ .. . 

2 Physiologie, iii., p. 460. Carpenter also cites a number of examples (^| 479-4^o;- 



Ill] THE CONSCIOUS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 8i 

beginning might be thought of as having for its condition, that a 
single impression should at once call up several conscious elements. 
Just as it seems that what has taken place unconsciously can be 
remembered, so an impression might be able to arouse conscious- 
ness, by simultaneously freeing both fore-ground and back-ground. 
But this does not imply that the origin of consciousness can be 
thought of as a single, momentary act. 

ID. Notwithstanding the intimate connection and close inter- 
action between the conscious and the unconscious, the latter re- 
mains for us a negative conception. The unconscious processes 
are cerebral processes just as much as the conscious, but whether, 
like these, they are of several kinds, we do not know. Instead of 
speaking of unconscious thought or unconscious feeling, it would 
be safer— if we wish to avoid all hypotheses — to speak with 
Carpenter and John Stuart Mill of unconscious cerebration, 
were not this expression unsuitable, as suggesting, in the first 
place, the mistaken notion that there may be consciousness of 
cerebration, properly so called, and because, in the second 
place, it might appear to affirm that there is nothing at all in 
unconscious activity related to what we know in ourselves as 
conscious states. Just the impossibility of drawing a sharp 
line of demarcation between the conscious and the unconscious, 
together with the thoroughgoing analogy between their mode of 
action and their results, might perhaps justify an hypothesis 
upholding the law of continuity in the world of ideas, even as 
in the material world everything seems obedient to it. To all the 
different material phenomena of movement there would then corre- 
spond different degrees and forms of what in us appears as thought 
and feeling. As the organic world is built up of elements and 
by means of activities which make their appearance, though more 
scattered and without unity and harmony, in inorganic nature also, 
so in the sensations, feelings, and thoughts of conscious beings we 
should have higher forms of development of a something that, in 
a lower degree and in a lower form, exists in the lower stages of 
nature. We should escape from the paradox that conscious life 
begins without any previous preparation. Leibniz drew this very 
conclusion from the law of continuity : " Rien ne saurait naitre 
tout d'un coup, la pensee non plus que le mouvement." ^ He 
instituted an analogy between the relation of kinetic energy to 
tension and the relation of the conscious to the unconscious. As 

1 Op. phil. Ed. Erdmann, p. 226. C/"., even earlier, Spinoza, Eth. ii., 13, Schol. 

G 



82 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [iii 

tension (potential energy) is living force in equilibrium, so might 
unconsciousness be consciousness at rest or neutralized. This 
would agree very well with the fact that change or destruction of 
equilibrium is so essential a condition of consciousness. As in 
the external world there is no such thing as absolute rest, so — it 
might then be said— there is no absolute unconsciousness. Un- 
consciousness would then not be a negation of consciousness, but 
would be a lower degree of it, the continuation backwards of the 
series of degrees of consciousness.^ 

Empirically, conscious life appears as united to certain forms 
or functions of the nervous system. But the nervous system has 
itself arisen by differentiation out of uniform protoplasm ; the 
properties of the nervous system must likewise, therefore, be 
higher grades of something already correlated with general organic 
matter {cf, above, p. 35). There is nothing here to justify the 
introduction, at a certain given stage of material development, 
of wholly new points of view. The nervous system is, so to 
speak, only the highest flower of material existence ; it is distin- 
guished above other forms only by its higher degree of develop- 
ment. For this reason modern physiologists {e.g, Claude 
Bernard) trace sensibility back to the irritability (the power of 
receiving and responding to excitations) of organic matter. Con- 
scious reaction would thus be only a higher form of unconscious 
reaction. Bernard finds evidence for this in the effect of stupefy- 
ing drugs (anaesthetics). The power of such drugs (opium, 
chloroform, &c.) to suspend consciousness is due to the fact that 
they take effect first of all on that part of the organism which is 
most susceptible to excitations, and this is the nervous system, 
the most highly differentiated organic matter. But by the use of 
stronger doses, or by continuation of the effect, the remaining vital 
activity is also gradually affected. Now that which is influenced 
by one and the same thing in the same manner, only in different 
degrees, can be different only in degree. In this way we ascend 
gradually from the lowest manifestations of life to that highest 

1 This view is held by various more modern writers. The most interesting develop- 
ment is that of Clifford (^Lectures and Essays, ^ ii., pp. 61-84 seq!). Virchow, who 
contested this hypothesis in his speech on " The Liberty of Science" i^Die Freiheit der 
Wissensckaft), made nevertheless in regard to it the significant admission that, if the 
mental processes could be completely brought into connection with what takes place in 
the rest of the world, the province of mental phenomena would necessarily be extended 
far below the human consciousness — down to the lowest animals, to plants, cells, and atoms 
(p. 27). Monistic speculation cannot be called inadmissible, if it really is the only logical 
method of postulating connection between the mental phenomena and the rest of the 
■yvorld. 



Ill] THE CONSCIOUS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 83 

vital activity, with which consciousness is linked.^ The differ- 
ence between human consciousness and the psychical element 
associated with the group of atoms, must be supposed to be as 
great as is the distance between the functions of the human 
brain and the movements of the inorganic group, though it 
may be one of degree only. Here, therefore, we are brought 
to recognize a continuation downwards of the scale previously 
given (I. 6). A difference of degree, however, does not exclude 
the possibility of the emergence of absolutely new forms and 
properties, to which we have no parallel in the lower stages ; 
a body acquires, e.g.^ other properties when its temperature 
is changed, and a compound substance may possess properties 
which belong to none of its constituents. We cannot, therefore, 
form any idea of the character of those forms of mental life which 
lie lower than what is to us the threshold of consciousness. 

II. There still remains an important consideration. In what 
precedes, stress has been laid on the principle of the conservation of 
physical energy, a principle which expresses a grand coherence in 
the material world, but prevents the acceptance of a causal relation 
between matter and consciousness. But the principle of the con- 
servation of energy is only the special, precise form which the 
general causal principle takes in the physical province. In this 
province the causal principle is satisfied, if physical causes have 
physical effects. But now consciousness makes its appearance as 
a plus which is added at certain points to these physical effects, as 
a something over and above, that cannot be explained by physical 
causes. Dubois Reymond, in his treatise Uber die Grei^zen des 
Naturerken?ie7is (1872), (" On the Limits to the Knowledge of 
Nature,^') concludes from this, that mental phenomena stand out- 
side the law of causality, and indicate a breach with the principle 
of sufficient reason. After all we have said, he must be allowed to 
be right, so long as we keep to a purely deductive standpoint and 
derive the premisses of the deduction from the principles of 
physical mechanics. But we have no right to regard these 
principles as the only ones. They are, as already pointed out 
(II. 2), the presuppositions on which it has been possible to erect 
the proud structure of the natural sciences ; but it does not follow 
that they exhaust the nature of being. The same being, which, 

1 Bernard, Legons siir les Phenovienes de la Vie, pp. 280-290; see also his paper "La 
Sensibilite dans la Regne Animal et dansle Regne Vegetal " (in the collection of Bernard's 
papers published under the title La Scie7ice experimentale) ; as also his Rapport sur les 
Prog?'es et la MaixJic de la Physiologie genh'ale en France (Paris, 1877), p. 180. 



84 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [iii 

looked at from one side, may be apprehended and explained from 
points of view contained in the law of conservation and in the law 
of energy, may well have other sides, not to be explained from 
these points of view but involving new principles, though these 
cannot of course contradict the others. Now we have shown in 
the first chapter, that the principle that psychology is independent 
of natural science (in the narrower sense) is indicated by the fact 
that psychology is not merely based on the consequences of 
physics and physiology, but draws also from a totally different 
source of knowledge, namely, from inner subjective perception. 
If, then, experience is not exhausted in physical experience, we 
understand the necessity — after drawing the final consequences of 
the fundamental laws of physical experience, and finding that they 
do not lead to consciousness — of instituting a new inductive 
investigation, of apprehending a new empirical starting-point. 
Here two tasks present themselves, the one the discovery of a 
conformity to law in the psychological world of experience, the 
other the discovery of the relation in which the psychological 
experiences must stand to the physical. With the first we shall 
occupy ourselves in the subsequent chapters ; the second we have 
treated in the preceding chapter. There it was seen to be 
difficult, if not impossible, to interpolate conscious life in interstices 
or gaps of external nature, and we were led to conceive of it as 
another form of manifestation of the same being that operates in 
the material world. Herewith Dubois Reymond^s paradox falls to 
the ground. For there is now a possibility of supposing a con- 
nection as thoroughgoing in the one province as in the other. 
That consciousness seems to us to arise out of nothing is in that 
case only an illusion, precisely as it is a delusion to suppose that in 
external nature anything arises out of nothing. The apparent 
emergence of consciousness is then only a transition from one 
ideal form into another, just as every new material movement is 
produced by conversion from another form of movement. 

Such an hypothesis must be taken at its proper value. The 
unconscious is a conception that marks a limit in science, and 
when we stand at such a limit, it may have its importance to try 
and measure, by way of hypothesis, the possibilities which suggest 
themselves as consequences of our knowledge ; but any real 
extension of knowledge in this way is impossible. The psycho- 
logist acts here like the philologist, who supplements the fragment 
of an ancient author by critical conjecture. The mental world — as 



til] THE CONSCIOUS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 85 

compared with the physical world — is to us as a fragment ; it is 
possible to complete it only by means of hypothesis, and even such 
completion has great difficulties, which have already been touched 
upon (see p. 66 seq?). 

12. This fragmentary character of the psychological phenomena, 
as known to us, makes it impossible for psychology ever to become 
an exact science, such as physics is already, and as physiology is 
in process of becoming. 

The inner incompleteness of psychology is connected with the 
fact that we can propound no principle to which both our psycho- 
logical and our physical knowledge can be traced back. Philoso- 
phical speculation has sought for some such principle, from 
which both the world of spirit and of matter might be deduced. 
Spinoza found it in " substance," the infinite original essence, 
Schelling in '' the absolute identity," Hegel in the " absolute idea." 
But it has been proved of every principle of this kind, that it 
contains no real explanation, and that the deduction rests on 
unwarranted assumptions. Starting from experience, we are led 
to formulate such an aim, but perceive at the same time that it 
can never be attained. 

But if we cannot at once reach an exact deductive psychology, 
to say nothing of a higher knowledge from which both psycho- 
logy and physics might be deduced, we may establish by way 
of induction significant laws, which hold good in matter of 
fact for both conscious life and external nature. To Herbert Spencer 
belongs the credit of having first really worked from this point of 
view.i He has shown that all phenomena known in inner as well 
as in outer experience are subject to evolution, and has tried to lay 
down laws of evolution common to both. In all departments 
evolution consists in transition from an incoherent, indefinite, and 
homogeneous state to coherence, definiteness, heterogeneity. ^ By 
these common laws and forms mental life appears from a new side 
as closely bound up with the general life of the universe ; with this 
its paths are interlaced. Here we will call special attention only to 
the fact that progressive individualization may be given as the 

1 First Principles (ist ed., 1861) ; Principles of Biology (1864); Principles oj 
Psychology (ist ed., 1855). 

^ See Den e^tgelske Filosofi ivor Tid{'' The English Philosophy of our Times"), pp. 
137-139 (German edition^ 1889, pp. 176-178). Among Danish writers, Sibbern has laid 
special weight on the fact, that all evolution takes place sporadically from_ different 
starting-points, and only by degrees leads to coherence, and he has shown this in respect 
of mental life very finely in a treatise in his Philosophischen Archiv (Kopenhagen, 1830), 
p. 263. \Cf. Dr. Ward's application of this principle of "progressive differentiation" to 
the theory of presentations \Ency. Brit. vol. xx. pp. 44 seq., Art. " Psychology"). (Tr.)] 



S6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [in 

common mark of evolution in all its forms. Everywhere in 
nature smaller totalities form themselves within the great, infinite 
totality, each with its particular relation of interaction with the 
surrounding world.^ An individual is a being which is in such a 
way separated off from and independent of its surroundings, 
that it can re-act upon them with a certain uniqueness. But as 
already hinted (p. 35 seg'.), the full stamp of individuality is found 
only in the province of conscious life, where central points are found 
for passion and action. This law of the universe receives therefore 
its clearest expression in the mental province, as a sort of com- 
pensation for the fact that the more elementary law of the con- 
servation of energy cannot be established there. Could these two 
laws be brought into inner harmony or reduced to a yet deeper 
principle, all problems would be solved. 

1 See my work Uber die G7nmdlage der huuianen Ethik^^^On the Basis of Humane 
Ethics") (Bonn, i8So), pp. 80-81. 



IV 

CLASSIFICATION OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS 

I. The preceding chapters have been occupied with the relation 
of psychological phenomena to other departments. Before we 
enter into an investigation of special psychological relations^ it will 
be profitable to glance at conscious life as a whole and at the 
chief differences found in it. We shall thus be less exposed to 
the danger of losing sight of the whole for the details. It is true 
that, as in the previous chapters we have made use of psycho- 
logical developments and results, so here we shall have to take as 
given and allowed much that can be proved only by special in- 
vestigation. We shall gain, however, this advantage, that the 
exposition may proceed from the more to the less obvious, 
and from the main features to the details. To which may be 
added, that special psychological investigations presuppose an 
abstraction from that great vital connection, in which every mental 
fact has its existence ; so that it is the more necessary to gain 
first of all a firm grasp of that whole out of which psychological 
abstraction isolates single elements. 

The abstract character of psychological distinctions and con- 
ceptions has not always been clearly seen. Reflection discovered at 
a very early stage different elements in conscious states, but was 
disposed to establish them as independent, separate parts or 
faculties of the mind {cf. I. 8, c). Thus even in Plato {Republic^ 
Bk. IV.) we find a distinction, based on a penetrating analysis, 
between different "parts'^ of the mind, in which inner con- 
tending principles are exhibited : (i) Reason ; (2) Feelings of 
courage and anger ; (3) Sensuous impulse. In modern times 



88 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [iv 

different "faculties" have been spoken of in the same external 
manner, as acting independently of, and in opposition to, one 
another. Not only was a division between different parts or 
faculties thus introduced — a division disproved by the thorough- 
going unity of conscious life, without which even the strongest 
contrasts could not be felt or apprehended — but moreover those 
who took this view fell into the delusion of supposing that by 
tracing the phenomena back to different " faculties " they had 
reached an explanation : that, e.g.^ knowledge and feeling would 
severally be more easily intelligible, if a special faculty of know- 
ledge and a special faculty of feeling were accepted. This illusion 
was similar to that which derived life from a vital force — a notion 
ridiculed by Moliere in the last interlude oi Le Malade Imaginaire^ 
when he makes the candidate for a medical degree explain the 
soporific effect of opium by attributing to opium a virtus dormi- 
tiva. The purely abstract character of such distinctions was 
overlooked — as in popular usage it is still overlooked. They imply 
only that there are certain differences between certain states of 
consciousness. But it does not follow that there is any justification 
for arranging the various states each in its own class. It must first 
be inquired whether there are not the same elements in all actual 
states of consciousness, the differences arising from the preponder- 
ance of certain elements and the subordinate importance of others. 
Properly speaking, then, it is not the phenomena of consciousness 
or the states of consciousness themselves which are grouped and 
classified, but the elements which on closer examination we find in 
them, since by psychological elements we understand the different 
sides or qualities of the states or the phenomena of consciousness. 
When intellection and feeling are contrasted with one another, all 
that can be meant is the contrast between states with preponder- 
ating ideational-elements, and states with preponderating feeling- 
elements. It will be seen that this view is the only one tenable, 
since no state can be pointed out, which is absolutely pure idea, 
or feeling, or will. The question as to classification, then, is really 
this — whether we are justified in admitting different species of 
psychological elements. 

2. The classification now generally accepted is the tripartite 
division, into cognition, feeling, and will. After the bipartite 
division into cognition and will had been followed from the time 
of Aristotle, the German psychologists of the last century accepted 
feeling as an intermediate link. Rousseau obtained special in- 



IV] CLASSIFICATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS ^9 

fluence on psychological classification by impressively maintaining 
the rights and the importance of the life of feeling. Kant's ap- 
phcation of this tripartite division secured for it universal accept- 
ance. The attempts which have been made since Kant to trace 
back all manifestations of consciousness to a single species of 
element, have not been successful, and besides, these really recog- 
nize the three kinds as given, and only endeavour to trace them 
back to one principle. 

The older psychologists conceived feeling either as obscure 
thought, or as impulse and will. It was natural that attention 
should first be directed to cognition and will, and should overlook 
the elements which lie deeper. This is analogous to the fact that 
attention is directed outwards to the external world earlier than 
to the internal. Cognition and will denote in fact the sides of 
conscious life which are turned to the outer world. In cognition 
(under which psychology reckons sensations, representations, 
and thoughts) an image is formed of the external world and of the 
individual himself as a part of the world. In will (under which are 
reckoned impulse, purpose, and resolve) the individual reacts on 
the outer world. The elements of feeling, the inner rhythm of 
pleasure and pain, are always so closely bound up with certain 
images and thoughts or with certain actions, that they may easily 
be confounded with them. Besides, the element of feeling is in 
itself difficult to describe. A simple sensuous percept, e.g.^ a colour 
or a sound, can be more directly indicated ; but feelings of pleasure 
and pain lie deeper, and cannot be elements of immediate sensuous 
perception. Feeling might perhaps be defined as that in our inward 
states, which cannot by any possibility become an element of a 
percept or of an image. . It is an inner illumination which falls on 
the stream of sensations and ideas. Nor is it every pleasure and 
pain which finds expression in action. In the first chapter we have 
given instances of the difficulty of arguing from external relation to 
inner feelings. 

The independence of the feeling-elements as contrasted with 
other conscious elements is apparent in the fact that even if 
there be no state that can be called mere feeling without cognition 
and will, yet feeling does not necessarily accompany any definite 
condition, theoretical or practical. In different individuals and in 
the same individual at different times, pleasure and pain accompany 
different objects. Something which at first excites pain, may 
afterwards excite pleasure, and vice versa. At the same time there 



0O OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [iv 

is a clear contrast between states in which thought or action so 
powerfully occupies consciousness that the wave of feeling is 
scarcely perceptible, and states in which the powerful stirring up of 
feeling suppresses clear and coherent thought and circumspect 
action. Physiologically, the latter states are clearly indicated by the 
transmission of movement from the central nervous system to the 
internal organs, and by the reaction of these upon the brain. 

3. Although we are thus justified in employing the tripartite 
division as a basis in psychological inquiries, it does not follow 
that it is to be regarded as original. In presenting the charac- 
teristics of conscious life, we take it as it appears at an advanced 
stage of development, where it has acquired a certain distinctly 
marked form. There is no ground for supposing that the threefold 
nature of the elements is equally prominent at lower stages of 
development. On the contrary, it is one of the general laws of 
development that the indefinite and the homogeneous precedes the 
definite and heterogeneous. The first germ of the organism is a 
uniform mass, in which no definite structure can be distingished. 
If conscious life follows the general laws of life and of develop- 
ment, then the three different species of elements must not be 
expected to stand out so clearly at the lowest as at the later 
stages. 

This suggests the introduction of a second point of view. 
Instead of a classification according to breadth, according to 
the dissimilar but simultaneous elements, we now obtain a classi- 
fication according to height, according to the stages of develop- 
ment. A point of view of this kind was introduced at an early 
period in psychology, and once more Aristotle, the founder of 
experiential psychology, must first be named. Plato, indeed, dis- 
tinguished between higher and lower forms of mental life ; but he 
was mainly influenced by ethical motives, and denied that the 
higher mental forms could be evolved from the lower, since the 
latter arose only through the implanting of a spiritual being in a 
mortal body. Aristotle, on the other hand, tries, with a penetrating 
use of the materials at his disposal, to show how one form of 
the mental manifestations forms the basis of another. In our 
times this conception has received fresh support through the 
evolution-hypothesis, and through the inducement this offers to 
find the connection between the stages of development of mental 
life not only in the individual but also in the race and in successive 
generations. 



IV] CLASSIFICATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS 91 

4. Conscious life certainly begins in the foetus-state (see I. 4). 
So far as it is possible to judge, various more or less definite 
sensations (consequently cognitive elements) must be experienced 
even in this state. In like manner there are certainly oscilla- 
tions of pleasure and pain, following the course of the vegetative 
functions. In the movements, often very lively, which the fcetus 
makes, may be recognized the expression of a primitive will, 
whether we explain them (with Bain) by an unconscious impulse to 
the discharge of accumulated tension, or even here talk of an 
actual impulse to movement. Even if these movements take 
place at first quite unconsciously, they will soon bring about 
consciousness through the sensations which they occasion. Here, 
then, are elements of all three kinds, but in close conjunction. 
The transition from stimulus to reaction is here immediate ; even 
if the movements of the foetus are something more than mere 
reflex-movements, they do not rise far above the stage of instinct. 
Instinct is distinguished from mere reflex-movement by the fact 
that it includes an obscure impulse of feeling, consequently a sort 
of consciousness, though not consciousness of the actual end of 
the action ; it is distinguished from the involuntary discharge of 
energy, supposed by Bain, by the fact that it is directed to a de- 
finite end, useful either to the individual or to the race. Instinct 
need not be displayed at one stroke ; it does not exclude the 
necessity of certain elementary experiences ; but these are easily 
and naturally obtained by means of the original organization. The 
movements in which the sense of well-being or of discomfort finds 
expression, must naturally take that course which the organization 
of the individual renders most accessible. This original organization 
is a given starting-point, connecting the conscious and the uncon- 
scious, the heritage of the race and the experience and activity 
of the individual. The new-born individual is thus not only in 
possession of sensory and motor organs, but had already begun, in 
the maternal bosom, to exercise them.^ A definite discrimination 
of the different elements cannot, however, be made at this stage. 
Sensations blend immediately with feelings of pleasure and pain, 
and these break out, equally immediately, into movements. 

The experiences of early childhood correspond to what may 
be concluded about the conscious life of the foetus. The pre- 
dominating importance of the vegetative life precludes differ- 

1 Kussmaul, Untersiuhungeji uher das Seelenlchen des netcgcbnrenen Menschen, p. 35 ; 
cf. Cabanis, Rapport die Physique et die Morale ed. Peisse, Paris, 1843, p. 114, seq. 
Burdach, Physiotogie als Erfakrungs'ivisseiischaft^ Leipzig, 1828, vol. ii. p. 693, seq. 



92 OUTLINES OF" PSYCHOLOGY [iv 

entiation. Immediate^ instantaneous transition from excitation 
to movement is characteristic of the earhest stage of conscious 
life ; it is only gradually that an interval is formed, in which inner 
differences and contrasts may make themselves felt. "The 
absolute strength of the assimilation of brain-substance is con- 
siderably greater in the child than in the adult. The greater 
content of water, and the decidedly softer constitution of the brain- 
substance, likewise favour assimilation, the preponderance of which 
may in some measure account for the greater excitability of a 
child's nervous system." Where adults merely tremble, children 
fall into convulsions. The purely involuntary and instantaneous 
character of the transition from stimulus to movement is especially 
manifest from the small importance of the cerebrum in the earliest 
period of life. Its removal or disease has not the same con- 
sequences for infants as for older persons.^ If the connection 
between the functions of the cerebrum and the higher activities of 
consciousness is considered, the psychological significance of these 
facts will be realised. 

Even where there is not only instinct, but also impulse in the 
narrower sense, namely, as a motor-impulse directed by an idea 
of the end, the relations are still too simple for the difference in the 
psychological elements to be clearly and definitely apparent. The 
idea plays in impulse only the part of disposing the mind to 
move in a certain direction, as the idea of water in a thirsty 
person. Now to the painter who thinks of the play of light on the 
surface of water, or to the chemist who thinks of its composition, 
the idea of water is to a certain extent separated off from the rest 
of the conscious state, and has become in some measure inde- 
pendent of it. 

Just as consciousness is slowly evolved out of vegetative life, so 
is it, through the infirmities of old age, the gradual approach of 
death, and in advanced mental disease, agaki resolved into it. 
The highest, most differentiated phenomena of consciousness are 
the first to give way ; impulse, instinct, and reflex movements be- 
come again predominant. The phrase " to grow childish ^' ex- 
presses the resemblance between the first stage and the stage of 
dissolution. 

Thus consciousness describes a curve from the foetus state to 
death. The two points in which this curve terminates are com- 

1 Vierordt, PhysioLogie des Kindesalters, pp. 133 — 137 ; Darwin, The ExJ>ression of 
the Eiuotions, London, 1872, p. 6-] (2nd edition 1890, p. 70). 



ivl CLASSIFICATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS 93 

paratively simple states, but little differentiated or articulate. Only 
in the middle and on the highest point do ideas, feelings and 
expressions of will come into effect in their specific character. 

5. What in this way applies to the development of the in- 
dividual, is valid also for that of the race. A definite distinction 
between intellection, feeling and will presupposes a stage of 
civilization where perpetual and instantaneous reaction upon the 
external world is not required. Directly or indirectly the whole 
conscious life is determined by the position of the individual in 
the universe, and by his need to make acquaintance with his 
surroundings and either bring them into harmony with him, or 
himself with them. Even in the thoughts and feelings apparently 
most independent of practical considerations, practical motives of 
this kind may be traced. But it is a condition of any independent 
development of the life of thought and feeling, that the elementary 
practical requirements of life should be satisfied. Science and art, 
which are the forms taken by this life of thought and feeling when 
it is emancipated from immediate practical motives, do not develop 
during a state of general warfare. Nor are the shady sides and 
degenerate features of psychological differentiation, such phenomena 
as morbidness and sentimentality, possible under these conditions. 
Where life is an immediate struggle for existence, thought does not 
become isolated from feeling, nor feeling from will. Threatening 
dangers and hoped-for benefits fully engage consciousness, and set 
the will immediately in motion. The content of thought is that 
which impulse (Schopenhauer^ s Wille zum Lebeii) demands, and 
feeling is one with desire. 

6. The forming of an interval between affection and reaction 
presupposes adequate energy as well as an adequate organization 
and adequate time. — There must be sufficient energy to resist the 
impression ; its immediate influence must be checked, that more 
extensive inner activities may be called out and developed. And 
these inner processes lay claim to an energy which would other- 
wise be at the immediate disposal of the re-acting activity. 
Starting from the supposition that a conscious being at every stage 
of development has at its disposal a certain sum of energy, the 
limits of which are also the limits of the individual (so far as intensity 
is concerned), it is clear that this sum must be greater if it has to be 
divided among different complicated functions, than if it is employed 
in the execution of a single simple function. If this energy does 
not augment with increasing differentiation, the latter leads to a 



94 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [iv 

weakening or to a morbid one-sidedness of conscious life. — That 
these inner activities presuppose 2iX\Q}i\.^x organization^ needs no 
special proof. Even if no thoroughgoing localization of the various 
psychological elements is admitted, it is yet probable that the 
cerebral processes are the more complex, the greater the advance in 
psychological differentiation. — In like manner it is clear that longer 
time is required for the reaction to take place, if several different 
activities are called into play. A certain independence of the 
requirements of the moment is therefore, as already observed, a 
condition of higher mental development. A simple and clear 
proof of this is given in the investigations into physiological time, 
i.e. the time which elapses before a stimulus is perceived and 
responded to. Even reflex movement takes more time than mere 
transmission along a nerve fibre ; the difference (the so-called reflex 
time) is about one-twentieth of a second. Still greater is the 
difference between a voluntary movement and the contraction of a 
muscle due to the direct stimulation of the motor-nerve ; experi- 
ments made with the forefinger of the right hand gave the 
difference as 0*13 of a second. Stimulation of the grey substance 
of the cerebrum, in the region where the motor-centres are located, 
takes 0*015 of a second longer to arrive at the muscle, than stimu- 
lation of the immediately underlying white substance. The 
stronger and more distinct the excitation, and the more natural or 
practised the voluntary movement which it calls forth, the shorter is 
the physiological time (or, as it is also called, the re-action time), and 
the nearer the approach to the sureness and quickness of reflex 
movement and of instinct. The more the individual is prepared 
for the nature and strength of the excitation and for the movement 
by which it is to be answered, the quicker will the re-action take 
place. Even with doubt as to which of two possible excitations 
will be given, physiological time increases ; there is then interpo- 
lated a " discrimination-time'^, which is spent in determining the 
nature of the excitation. And if at the same time each of the possible 
stimuli is to be answered by a special movement, so that the move- 
ment to be made has first to be decided, then a special " will-time ^^ 
is required.^ 

7. It must not be forgotten that differentiation implies only 

1 Exner, Physiologie der Grosshirnrinde (Hermann il., 2), pp. 278-281. — Panum, 
Nervevdrets i^j-/*?/*?^/ (" Physiology of the Nervous Tissue"), pp. 115-207. — Wundt, 
Physiol. Psychologies i., p. 259, ii., p. 206-279 (3rd edition, i. p. 277, ii. pp. 263-330.) 
And yet, according to later experiments (Cattell, Psychof7ietrische Unterstichiingen^ 
Wundt's Studien iii., p. 472) physiological time is not extended in the more complicated 
transactions as much as might be expected. 



IV] CLASSIFICATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS 95 

preponderance of different elements in different states, not their 
complete separation. 

a. In spite of all independence of practical need and of the 
wants of the moment, thought is always accompanied by a certain 
mood. Elements of feeling are present, and are overlooked 
so easily only when, instead of coming to the front, they sub- 
ordinate themselves to the play of thought and are determined 
by it. An activity of thought entirely free from feeling (as so 
often postulated by speculative philosophy) does not exist. It is 
because of the movements of feeling accompanying all ideas and 
thoughts, that knowledge becomes a power in the mind. When the 
conflict of reason with passion is talked of, what is really meant is 
a conflict between the feelings accompanying reasonable consider- 
ations and the more violent feelings associated with fewer elements 
of thought, which are denoted by the expression passion. A feeling 
may be very strong and deeply rooted without being violent, but is 
then more easily overlooked. The feelings accompanying ideal 
aims and relations are far less in a position to produce momentary 
effects and sudden ebullitions than are the primitive feelings, ac- 
companying the physical vital functions. In the passions asso- 
ciated with self-preservation and the propagation of the race there 
lies an animal ardour, which is often beyond the control of all 
other influence. Ideal feelings are spread over a longer space of 
time, and take effect more secretly. And yet they are capable of 
possessing themselves step by step of the central position in the 
mind, and of employing in their service the accumulated energy 
originally under the control of those primitive impulses. 

b. Just as little is cognition ever completely emancipated from 
will. In all memory and synthesis there is manifested an activity, 
of which we become specially conscious and which we call atten- 
tion, when for internal or external reasons it is brought strongly into 
play, but which in reality plays a part even in the simplest sensuous 
perception. We must will to see, in order to see aright. But it is 
true of this effort, as of the stirrings of feeling, that unless raised by 
opposition or in some other way to a higher degree of strength, it 
is as a rule overlooked. This element of activity in all intellection 
has been dwelt upon chiefly in modern psychology, at first espe- 
cially as a reaction against the attempts of Condillac and of the 
one-sided "association psychology ^^ to reduce all knowledge to 
mechanical interaction between purely passive sensations and their 
after-effects. 



96 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [iv 

c. While for a long time there was a disposition, overcome 
only through the influence of Rousseau on modern thought, 
to overestimate intellection at the expense of feeling, attempts have 
since been made, and especially in later times, to conceive 
feeling as the" primitive form of consciousness, so that conscious 
life at its lowest stage would be a life of pure feeling, and the other 
elements would only gradually develop out of it. Such attempts 
are explicable partly from the close connection of the life of feeling 
with the conditions of existence, while the cognitive elements 
seem to move rather in the periphery of our being ; partly and 
principally from the fact that the feeling elements are found 
more distinctly and strongly, and play a much greater part as 
compared with the cognitive elements, the farther we descend 
from the higher to the more primitive forms of consciousness. But 
this view is at once proved untenable by the fact that memory is 
concerned so soon as a state of pleasure or pain persists — and it 
must persist in order to be really felt ; ^ and so soon as a pulsation 
takes place — the intensity of states of feeling is always subject to 
oscillations — there will at once be involuntary comparison. Here, 
then, already are elements of cognition which may serve as the 
starting-point of a further development, so that cognition does not 
arise by a sort of generatio (xquivoca out of mere formless and 
blind states of feeling. 

A conception of this kind was formulated not long ago by 
Ad. Horwicz.^ According to this writer^s very interesting expo- 
sition, the movement stirred up by feeling clears the path for 
cognition. Pleasure and pain lead to certain movements, which 
are tested until the most suitable is found ; this is then practised 
and so obtains a special mark, by means of which it is made an 
object of consciousness. — But then there is something else besides 
the element of feeling, the motor-sensation namely ; and there is 
no ground for supposing that this latter is always derivative, for 
involuntary movement makes an appearance as early as con- 

1 Patients under chloroform often utter cries during the operation, without being able 
on awaking to remember that they had felt pain. "A vrai dire," says_ Richet in this 
connection, "cette douleur si rapide qu'on n'en conserve pas de souvenir, n'est riep, et 
c'est un moment presque mathematique dont il n'y a guere a tenir compte. Ce qui fait 
la cruaute de la douleur, c'est moins la douleur elle-meme, si intense qu'elle soit, que la 
retentissement penible qu'elle laisse apres elle." — Recherches sur la Sensibilite, p. 256. 
Maudsley considers that these cries of pain are purely reflex. He quotes a case of a 
lady, who had her breast amputated, and who remembered on waking that she had 
heard herself shriek, although she declared she had felt no'' '"pain {Mental Physiology^ 
p. 209). 

2 Psychologische Analysen atif physiologischer Grundlage (" Psychological Analyses 
on a Physiological Basis,") i., Halle, 1872, p. 350, seq. [For criticism of this view see 
Ency. Brit. vol. xx. Art. "Psychology," p. 40. (Tr.], 



IV] CLASSIFICATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS 97 

sciousness itself. In primitive consciousness there are, then, 
probably not only the feelings of pleasure and pain, but also motor- 
sensations. (I. 4, and IV. 4.) 

Even in the monera, the lowest forms of animal life, expansive 
and contractile movements have been found ; the former serve to 
take in food, the latter as a protection against attack. Even at this 
stage it seems necessary to suppose elements in consciousness 
other than mere feelings of pleasure and pain, namely, sensation of 
touch and movement, and perhaps sensations arising from chemical 
stimulation, something analogous to sensations of taste. " In the 
search made by the creatures (i.e. the protozoa) for food, it is plainly 
seen that they are capable of making certain distinctions, a capacity 
without which touch would have no object, could scarcely be called 
touch. Hand in hand with locomotion in search of food goes of 
necessity the formation of a discrimination among different direc- 
tions, i,e.^ a discrimination of the pleasant direction (that in which 
the object of food is found) from the relatively less pleasant ; and 
this distinction once present, the direction whence danger comes 
is readily discriminated from the contrary one.^^^ Although it 
might be supposed that the sensations experienced by these slightly 
developed beings, in whom no nervous system has yet been de- 
tected, could have no clearness and distinctness, yet the facts 
mentioned show that the creatures must be able to apprehend a 
difference between the stimuli. Pleasure and pain, moreover, would 
be of very little service to them if they were impelled thereby to 
execute movements, without being able to determine more closely 
from the character of the stimulus the kind and direction of the 
movement. 

In higher and fully developed animals also there is an approxima- 
tion to a state of pure feeling, namely, in the vital or general feeling 
— the fundamental frame of mind which results from the general 
state of the organism, from the normal or abnormal course of the 
vital processes, in particular of the vegetative functions. It is but 
rarely and imperfectly possible to localize the stimuli which produce 
this feeling. They do not make their appearance separately, or 
with the special qualitative character of the stimuli received through 
the senses. Even differences of degree are not so readily appre- 
hended here as in the special senses. The vital feehng consists in 

1 G. H. Schneider, Ztir Entivickelung- der Willensdnssericn^en im Tierreich ("On 
the Development of the Expressions of Will in the Animal Kingdom " ( Vierteljahrsschrift 
fur Tvissenschaftliche Philosophie, 3. Jahrg.), pp. 183, 301. Cf. Romanes, Mental Evo- 
lution m Anvnals, London, 1883, p. 55, seq., 80, seq. 



98 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [iv 

an obscure mood, of the cause of which we are not, at any 
rate not at once, conscious. Diseases of the heart and of the mind 
may cause disquiet and melancholy, without the sufferer discover- 
ing the causes of these frames of mind. In the years of puberty 
there is aroused with the growth of the sexual organs a vague desire 
and longing, an obscure impulse, that, in a way incomprehensible 
to the individual, takes him out of himself. The temperament is 
especially shown in the fundamental mood which prevails in the 
vital feeling. — Few as are the cognitive elements which can 
be indicated in these states, they yet stand out, each with such a 
special character, that the transition from the one to the other, 
together with the difference between them, must be more or less 
plainly felt in consciousness, and they can none of them be as 
simple as a state of pure feeling must needs be. 

That the higher feelings contain cognitive elements requires 
no further proof. Feeling acquires a content or an object only 
when it is linked with memories and thoughts. 

Self-observation reveals at most only an approximation to a 
state in which all cognitive elements have vanished. Such an 
approximation is reached, the more the strength of the feeling 
element increases. Cognition and feeling must thus stand in inverse 
relation to one another ; the more strongly the one is manifested, 
the less the strength at the command of the other. An overwhelm- 
ing joy or sorrow may drive out almost all ideation, all recollection ; 
but an ecstatic condition of this kind stands on the margin of 
consciousness. 

d. The close relation between feeling and will appears from the 
fact that only a strong and lively feeling serves as a motive to the 
will. Cognitive elements do not in themselves lead to voluntary 
movement. Sibbern calls attention to the fact that feeling and will 
have this in common, that in both "the ideas involved have a 
personal hold and effect, so that we yield ourselves up to them 
and are incited to act and strive for their realisation." ^ The close 
connection with movement is common to both. Movements caused 
by feeling are, indeed, in part such as are beyond the direct control 
of the will, and arise from the propagation of the strong movement 
of the brain to larger or smaller regions of the organism. Heart 
and lungs, alimentary canal, vascular system and other internal 
organs, show in this way traces of the effect of emotion. But also 
organs and muscles which are usually under the control of the 

1 Psychologic^ Copenhagen, 1856, p. 150, seq. 



IV] CLASSIFICATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS 99 

will, may be set in motion by strong feeling, and it may be difficult, 
if not impossible, to distinguish between emotional and voluntary 
movement. Feeling finds a natural vent through those movements 
which have been frequently (in the same individual and in earlier 
generations) employed in the service of the will. Even monads 
execute movements of contraction and shrinking to protect them- 
selves from enemies ; and when the same contraction and shrinking 
is found in beings on a higher level as a consequence of sudden 
fear, it is probable that this is an old instinct still obscurely stirring 
in the expression of the emotions. The Greek word (/)o/3os, fear 
originally signified (as frequently in Homer) flight. Similarly 
anger finds a vent in movements of attack, strong sympathy in 
extending the arms, as though to embrace the object, etc. 
According to the evolution-hypothesis, these phenomena find their 
natural explanation in the fact that the involuntary emotional 
movements were originally purposive voluntary movements.^ 

It is only in the course of psychological development that differ- 
entiation between feeling and will makes its appearance. There 
comes to be an ever greater contrast between the two ways in 
which inner movement finds a vent. The psychological import- 
ance of the law of persistence of energy is here seen plainly. For 
the more energy an individual expends on the one kind of reaction, 
the less can he expend on the other. This truth is strikingly illus- 
trated in Saxo's well-known tale of the different effect which the 
news of the murder of Regner^ Lodbrog produced on his sons : he 
in whom the emotion was weakest had the greatest energy for 
action. 

Feeling, like cognition, has at first a distinctly practical character. 
It is only after a long period of development that feeling is severed 
from practical impulse and can move freely (as in aesthetic and 
religious dispositions) without direct regard to outward action. 

e. If any one of the three species of conscious elements is 
to be regarded as the original form of consciousness, it must 
evidently be the will. In the instinct but slightly raised above 
reflex movement, is given the primitive form of consciousness, and 
in this the element of will is evidently the strongest ; the intellec- 
tual and emotional elements acquire significance only as links in 
the cKain that leads to action. Afterwards, too, the will forms at 
all stages the constant basis. Activity is a fundamental property of 

1 Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions, chap. i. ; Spencer, Principles of Psycho- 
logy., ii., p. 545, seq.\ Wundt, Physiologische Psychologies ii., p. 4i7(3rcled., ii., p. 510, seq.\ 

H 2 

•LofC. 



loo OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [iv 

conscious life, since always a force must be presupposed, which 
holds together the manifold elements of consciousness and unites 
them into the content of one and the same consciousness (III. 5). 
Independently of this, the most fundamental form of the will, the 
word will is used in two different senses, a narrower and a wider. 
In the narrower sense, as the power of choosing between different 
possibilities, the will is only the product of a mental development, 
not an original factor. But if will is understood in the wider sense, 
as all activity determined by feeling and cognition, it may be said 
that the whole conscious life is gathered up in the will as its fullest 
expression. Although conscious life reaches a higher development 
only by the inhibition of the involuntary impulse to movement, still 
the transition to movement is always the final step of all that 
takes place in the world of consciousness. The development of 
the conscious individual proceeds from will (in the wider sense) to 
will (in the narrower sense). This development may be very 
sporadic, may progress one-sidedly and by way of oppositions ; but 
there will always be present (if not in the individual, in the race) 
an obscure impulse leading beyond what is scattered, one-sided, 
and conflicting, to an inner harmony of the deepest mental 
currents. Ethics and aesthetics are quite right when they recognise 
in such a harmony the highest type of human life. 



V 

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 

A. Sensation 

I. In considering the cognitive elements apart from other 
phenomena, we make, as we saw in the last chapter, an abstraction, 
since in every actually experienced state of consciousness elements 
of feeling and will are undoubtedly present also. Such an abstrac- 
tion is, however, necessary ; in every scientific inquiry the subject- 
matter must be to some extent withdrawn from its complex 
conditions. And this abstraction must be carried yet farther, 
for the cognitive elements are themselves in a high degree 
complex. They can, it is true, be roughly divided into two groups, 
into sensuous perception and thought, but, as will be seen, these 
two groups are not distinct, but most closely connected. Con- 
sciousness — at any rate in the forms in which we know it at first 
hand — never makes its appearance as a perfectly simple series. 
Numerous series of thoughts and memories, sensations and 
ideas interlock in every individual experience, every individual 
judgment. But in order to get a clear view of relations and laws, 
we must, so far as possible, think of consciousness as forming a 
simple series. And not only so ; we must begin by thinking of this 
series as composed of sensations only. The distinction between 
sensuous perception and thought rests upon the distinction between 
sensations and representations ; between the new elements im- 
mediately given and the residues or after-effects of these elements, 
which re-emerge. So soon as elements acquired at an earlier stage 
are concerned in the apprehension of new elements, there is no 
longer pure sensation ; a certain amount of thought is then com- 



102 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

bined with the sensuous perception. And further, if we disregard 
this, and endeavour to conceive a consciousness which shall consist 
of nothing but sensations, there still remains the question whether 
even these are perfectly simple and independent of one another, 
or whether there is not constant combination and interaction 
between them. 

It is evident that the provisional account of consciousness given 
in an earlier chapter (II. 5) cannot be correct, if sensations are 
perfectly simple and independent. In that account we found the 
characteristic feature of consciousness to be the fact that it makes 
its appearance in a series of elements not mutually independent, 
but on the contrary essentially conditioning one another, a close 
interaction which had its most typical expression in memory. The 
correctness of this account must now be to some extent tested. 

2. By purely psychological observation the simplicity of our 
sensations can be ascertained only to a certain degree. We can 
never be quite certain that we have before us something unanalys- 
able. At the point where introspective psychology breaks off, the 
experimental physiology of the senses takes up the thread, and has 
in some instances established that the apparently simple psycho- 
logical phenomenon involves an intricate and complex physiological 
process. The possibility cannot therefore be excluded, that the 
psychological simplicity may be merely the result of previous 
combination below or at the threshold of consciousness. 

Organic or general sensations are, as a rule, of a manifold, 
chaotic character, a fact connected with their obscure and only 
slightly articulate nature. Stimuli from the organs of respira- 
tion, circulation, and digestion operate in conjunction without 
separately attaining to consciousness. Such a sensation as, e.g.^ 
nausea, has something complex about it even to immediate percep- 
tion, as may be seen from the fact that some have proposed to class 
it among sensations of taste, some among muscular sensations, 
while others have wished to distinguish it from either class. Many 
of the sensations of taste and smell are so mixed up with sensations 
of touch that they cannot be called anything pure and simple. 
Salt, sour and astringent tastes, pungent and sharp smells, are 
really combinations of sensations of taste and smell with sensations 
of touch. The pleasantness of many sorts of food {e.g. jelly) is 
certainly derived chiefly from their effect upon the delicate skin of 
the palate, and is therefore much ],iiore a question of touch than 
of taste. In the wider sense in which it is customary to speak of 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 103 

taste, the Shah of Persia was right when he reproached Europeans 
(who used knives and forks) for not knowing that the sense of taste 
begins in the finger tips. Again, not only smell, but also sight, 
plays a part in the enjoyment of food, for we cannot tell the taste 
of a thing so well in the dark as when we can call sight to our aid. 
An isolation is here possible only by artificial means, and will 
often result in showing that the sense of taste proper has nothing 
at all to do with the apparent sensations of taste. 

The sensation we have when we lift a weight from the ground 
is very complex. Contact, pressure, and muscular effort mingle in 
an indefinite whole, which becomes the more complicated from the 
fact that several different muscles, and in different degrees, are 
called into play. And yet it may seem to us as though we had a 
simple sensation. 

In respect of sensations belonging to one definite sense, it might 
be expected that the matter would be simpler and plainer. But 
even in this case it may be disputed whether a sensation is given 
in immediate apprehension as simple or as complex. 

Goethe held, e.g.^ that only the sensations of yellow, blue, and 
red are simple. These he called primary colours, and the other 
colours he regarded as composed of these, since, as he thought, in 
violet he could trace red and blue ; in green, yellow and blue ; and 
in orange, yellow and red.^ At the present day, on the contrary, 
E. Hering maintains that green is a perfectly simple sensation, and 
that yellow and blue can never be experienced together as elements 
of a compound colour. He draws up accordingly a scale of four 
primary colours — red, green, yellow, and blue.^ That such skilled 
observers should come to such decidedly different results is a proof 
of the untrustworthiness of direct psychological apprehension in 
these doubtful points. The matter itself admits evidently of 
another possibility, namely, that all sensations of colour may be 
simple. Any one who accustoms himself to abstract from recollec- 
tions and preconceived ideas, and to concentrate his attention on 
a narrow zone of the scale of colours, will certainly be able to 
obtain a perfectly simple sensation of every single colour, and if 
language had words enough, would feel the need of expressing 
each of these shades of colour by a separate word. It must be 
added that the dispute would begin all over again, if we had to 
specify which precise shade of red, green, etc., was the primary 

1 Farhenlehre, vol. i., § 60. [Eng. tr. by Eastlake.] 

'^ Zur Lehrevom Lichtslnne, 2nded., § 38. These four had already been given by 
Leonardo da Vinci. 



I04 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

colour. Each several observer would name his shade, and would 
maintain that all other shades resulted from admixture of other 
colours. When expressions of language contain a reference to 
certain primary colours, this is probably to be explained either by 
the fact that the colours of certain striking natural objects (green 
plants, red blood, etc.) were early imprinted upon and controlled 
the mind, or by the fact that the retina is more susceptible to some 
colours (especially yellow) than to others.^ 

But while a distinction may not be drawn between primary and 
composite colours, there is on the other hand reason to believe 
that every colour-stimulus is accompanied by a colourless light- 
stimulus, which passes, when the strength of the stimulus is 
greatly decreased or increased, into distinctly colourless sensation 
(of white, grey, or black). It is only with a stimulus of medium 
strength, that the colour-stimulus (the chromatic irritation) pre- 
ponderates over the colourless stimulus (the achromatic irritation). 
This admixture of a chromatic and an achromatic process in the 
visual organ is inferred partly from the fact that those parts of the 
retina situated farthest from the point of clearest vision (the yellow 
spot, fovea centralis) are under ordinary circumstances colour- 
blind, partly from the fact that every sensation of colour passes 
into a colourless sensation if the strength of the stimulus is 
sufficiently decreased or increased.^ 

In the province of hearing sensations seem to be compound also. 
Every tone has its timbre, that is to say consists of a combination, 
different according to the source of production, of a fundamental 
tone with weaker "higher tones'' or harmonics. The same tone 
therefore sounds different, if produced on different instruments. But 
just as the practised ear in a concert may distinguish the share of 
each instrument in the effect produced, so may specially endowed or 
well-practised organs of hearing pick out the partial tones in a 
sound, even though to immediate sensation it seems quite simple. 
A simple tone is thus properly an abstraction, since we certainly 
never hear tones or sounds quite without timbre. There is only a 
difference of degree between a tone {Klang) and a chord {Zusam- 
menklang)^ a difference conditioned by the weakness or strength of 
the harmonics relatively to the fundamental tone.^ 

1 Cf. V.'Krenchel, Oni Grundf arver {^'' On the Primary Colours"), Copenhagen, 1880, 
p. II, seq.\ (also in Grafe's Archiv. fur Ophthalmologic^ 1880); Wundt, Physiol. 
Psychologies i., p. 415 (3rd ed. i., p. 451); Fick, Die Lehre von der Lichtonpjindicng 
(" The Theory of the Sensation of Light "). (Hermann, iii., i), p. 192, seq. 

2 Wundt, Physiol. Psychologic, i, p. 453 (3rd ed. i, p. 491) 

3 {Cf. Bernstein, Five Senses of Man, p. 245, seq. (Tr.)] 



v] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION log 

This theory, propounded by Hehnholtz and generally accepted, 
shows how the compound nature of subjective sensations may be 
established by way of physical and physiological experiment. The 
sensation of tone {Klang) is resolved into elements, the relations 
among which determine the character of the sensation. But if this is 
so with one set of sensations, will it not be the same with our other 
sensations 1 If we do not with these possess the power of tracing the 
elementary sensations, out of which the sensation as presented to 
consciousness is compounded, this may have to do with the fact 
that the sense of hearing so far surpasses the other senses in the 
delicacy with which it can discriminate differences and gradations. 
The study of the sensation of hearing has at any rate shaken the 
principle of the simplicity of sensations, and has opened a fresh 
horizon at a point where the accessible psychological world seemed 
to end. 

There are, besides, certain phenomena which point to mental 
elements simpler than those distinctly received through the senses. 
The sensations experienced, when the attention is engaged in 
another direction, or even when we are suddenly surprised, have 
no definite qualitative character. We start, note that something 
has happened in or to us, but what this is, whether a light-stimulus, 
a push, or an electric-shock, we do not know, — at any rate not at 
the first moment. Thus the more sudden the sensation, and the 
shorter its duration, the smaller the possibility of classifying it 
under any one definite sense-quality. This applies also to cases 
where the excitations are very weak and of very limited range ; 
unless the excitation take effect actually on the palm of the hand or 
on the face, it is not possible to determine in the case of a weak and 
limited affection, whether it proceeds from contact or from heat. It 
seems, then, that in the distinct sensations of temperature and touch, 
we must recognise results of a combination, by which various ele- 
mentary sensations are united into groups, which then appear to 
consciousness as indissoluble unities. — A light-stimulus, if its effect 
is confined to a very small portion of the retina, calls up only an 
almost colourless sensation of white, even when the same stimulus 
applied to a larger portion of the retina, produces the sensation of 
a very intense colour. So that here again a very limited excitation 
occasions no qualitative sensation.^ 

It accords with this, that the nerve-process, whatever its nature 
may be, is carried on in pulsating beats or oscillations. It is the 

1 Hermann's Handbuch^ iii, i, p. 164, 169; iii., 2, p. 322. 



lo6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

highest law of the general physiology of the nerves, that a nerve- 
process can never be set up by a state of equilib'rium, but only by 
sudden changes, effected with a certain rapidity, in the condition 
of the nerve. A seemingly continuous nerve-process (a tetanus) is 
really only brought about by a series of quickly succeeding changes 
of equilibrium. The relations in the individual sense-organs, so 
far as known, seem to accord with this law.^ The sensation, as we 
know it, must correspond to several such beats or different 
momenta of the oscillations ; in one single conscious instant, in one 
momentary sensation, there is thus brought together what physio- 
logically occupies several moments of time. And since the 
structure and mode of action of the nervous system seems to be 
throughout homogeneous, only one way is open to explain the 
qualitative differences of sensations, to derive them, namely, from 
the different ways in which the elementary sensations, which cor- 
respond to the single nerve-pulsations or liberations of force, are 
combined. Just as the different kinds of colour may find their 
physiological counterpart in the different directions taken by the 
same brain-molecule,^ so a further step may be taken and the 
differences in the modalities of sensation ^ be conceived as having 
their counterpart in yet deeper differences of form and direction 
among the processes in the central and end organs. This is 
the only way in which it is possible to understand how the 
different senses can have arisen in the course of the evolution 
of organic beings. The farther the descent from the higher 
to the lower animals, the fewer the modalities found. That 
which remains as starting-point in the development of sensory 
activity, is the sense of touch. Out of this the special senses or 
modalities must have arisen by differentiation. It accords with 
this, that the special organs in all sensitive organisms are 
modifications of the external integument. 

This hypothesis (first proposed by Spencer) of the origin of our 
specific sensations through combination of simpler elementary 
sensations, opens up a wide horizon. But our chief interest 
here lies in the fact that, in taking up with this hypothesis, 

1 Funke in Hermann's Handbnch, iii., 2, p. 328, seq. The above quoted principal law 
of the physiology of the nerves was established by du Bois-Reymond in connection with 
electrical stimuli, 1845. L. Hermann, Allg. NervettpJiysiologie (" General Phys. of the 
lL^&YVQ?,,"){Handb7tch, ii., i), p. 50. 

^ V. Krenchel, Ojh Griindfarver (In German under the title "Uber die Hypothese 
von Grundfarben," Grafe's Archiv fiir OpJithabnologie^ 1880), p. 20, seq. 

'^ Modality is a term suggested by Helmholtz for what Fichte calls quality-circle 
{Qiialitdtskreis) '. the collective name for all sensations belonging to one class (sight, 
sound, taste, &c.). 



v] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 107 

we find at the confines of distinct consciousness, traces of a 
work which, while undoubtedly carried on below the threshold 
of consciousness, conforms to the laws that govern conscious- 
ness {cf. III). The general description of consciousness as 
synthetic and connective, proves to be applicable also to the 
ultimate elements to which we are led by analysis of compound 
states of consciousness. If, then, consciousness is asserted to 
be only a sum of sensations, the comment must at any rate be 
made, that the units of this sum are not absolutely simple, but 
have apparently arisen by synthesis of still simpler elements. 
A sensation is only a relative conception, as is an atom in the 
province of material nature.^ 

3. Closely connected with the question of the simplicity of 
sensations is the question of their relative independence. Here 
again the physiology of the senses yields interesting results. 

A certain opposition has to be overcome in the end-organs of 
the sensory nerves as well as in the nerve centres, before the 
stimulus can produce its full effect ; but when once this opposition 
is overcome, the effect will continue for some time after the ces- 
sation of the stimulus. This is the general physical law of inertia, 
as it comes into operation in the physiology of the nerves. The 
several senses are not, however, all alike in this respect. The 
greatest elasticity belongs to the sense of touch. By bringing the 
finger in contact with a cog-wheel, which revolves at a certain rate, 
we may have as many as 1000 distinct sensations per second. But 
if the rate is increased still further, there results only one continuous 
sensation. The sense of hearing comes closest to the sense of 
touch. But that the latter has the advantage is apparent from the 
fact that, if the hand is placed on a musical instrument, the 
vibrations of even fairly high tones are felt as a whirring. In 
experiments with one ear, the crack of two electric sparks is heard 
as distinct when the one sounds o'oo2 of a second before the other. 
In experiments with both ears, the limit is higher (o'o64 of a 
second). Electric shocks can still be distinguished when they 
arrive at the rate of thirty-five in the second ; if the rate is greater, 
only 07ie single sensation is experienced. On the forehead so 
many as sixty shocks in the second can be distinguished. The 
sense of sight stands lowest in respect of elasticity, a fact which is 

1 With regard to sensations of taste and smell, there are no trustworthy observations. 
It cannot be clearly proved that these sensations can be recalled, since it is impossible to 
be absolutely certain that remains of the matter tasted and smelt are not left in the 
organs. Vintschgau in Hermann's Handbuch, iii., 2, pp. 221, 284. 



iog OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [V 

accounted for by the nature of the end-organs. After observation 
of a brightly ilkiminated object, there remains an after-image when 
the eyes are closed. The new impression consequently does not 
find the place empty, but is combined with the after-effect of the 
previous impression. If a disk, divided into equal alternate sectors 
of white and black, is set to revolve quickly, the impressions are 
fused, and there results a continuous sensation of grey, if about 
twenty-four impressions come per second and if the light 
equals ordinary daylight. A burning match, if swung round 
quickly in the dark, presents the appearance of an illuminated 
circle. When the revolutions are slow, the separate sensations are 
clearly noted ; when the speed is increased, there is a scintillation, 
and when increased still further, the impressions are all fused in 
one sensation.^ 

The blind patient operated on by Franz, found it disagreeable, 
even several months after the operation, to walk along much 
frequented streets. The many different objects and the quick 
movements of men, carriages, etc., so confused his sight that at 
last he could see nothing ; the impression produced by the object 
last seen not having disappeared before the succeeding object 
called forth a fresh impression. In this case the separate im- 
pressions were not completely fused, but produced a chaos 
which made distinct apprehension impossible. And at every 
stage of consciousness a certain rate of succession must be ob- 
served if the sensations are to be distinct. 

For a sensation to arise there must be not only a certain interval 
of time^ but also a certain contrast^ between the impression it 
accompanies and the preceding impression. There must be a 
background, from which the new sensation may stand out. 
If gently and gradually increased, a stimulus may remain un- 
observed, even after it has reached a degree of strength which, 
under other conditions, would call out sensation. The quite 
gradual increase in strength of an electric current will at length 
destroy a nerve subjected to its influence, without any sign of 
sensation. By very gradual increase or decrease of tempera- 
ture, a frog may be boiled or frozen to death without making 
the smallest movement. Sensations of warmth or cold arise 

1 Fick, Hermann's Handbiich., iii., i, p. 211, seq. ; Exner, ibid.^ ii., 25 pp. 256-260. The 
strong and persistent after-effects in the eye are an important argument for the photo- 
chemical theory, according to which the setting free of the so-called visual purple in the 
retina, effected by rays of light, is the real stimulation of the visual nerve. Kiihne, 
Cheniische Vorgdnge in der Netzhaiit ("Chemical Processes in the Retina "), (Hermann, 
iii., i), pp. 238, 261. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 109 

only when a change in the temperature of the skin is effected 
with a certain rapidity. A sensation of temperature arises when 
the skin (or more precisely the thermic apparatus) acquires a 
temperature which is sufficiently above or below its " zero-tempera- 
ture^^ {i.e. the temperature which, at the points of the skin con- 
cerned, is felt neither as warm nor as cold).^ 

Very weak stimuli are absorbed by previous or simultaneous 
stimuli, without producing any special sensation. If a person has 
been electrified for some instants by a strong current, he does not 
notice a weaker one. If a strong current is received through one 
hand and a weaker one through the other, the latter is not noticed. 
If one point of a compass is placed on a painful wound and the 
other on the skin surrounding it, and an equal pressure applied, 
only one sensation will be felt, even though the distance between 
the points be twice that at which two sensations would be produced 
if both points were on the surface of the wound.^ Even Hippo- 
crates taught that of two pains, occurring at the same time but not 
on the same spot, the smaller would be suppressed by the greater. 
Shakspeare makes King Lear express the same thought ; for grief 
and rage he heeds neither rain nor storm, for " where the greater 
malady is fixed, the lesser is scarce felt," as contrariwise, " When 
the mind's free, the body's delicate." In a highly excited state 
of consciousness, even strong impressions can obtain no great 
hold. The ecstatic enthusiasm of martyrs must weaken their 
sense of suffering. Similarly hypochondria and mental distraction 
may prevent painful sensations ; the fixed idea which arrests con- 
sciousness may be so strong, that no other impression is able to 
attract the attention. 

The threshold of consciousness^ then, is not always at the same 
level, but is raised when there is not a great enough contrast to 
preceding or simultaneous impressions. On the other hand, it is 
lowered under certain conditions, as a result of custom or ac- 
commodation. If a sound is listened to as it dies away, it can be 
followed down to a minimum strength, inaudible to any one who 
has not heard it at the beginning. The eye can follow the 
flight of a bird to a distance at which the bird could not be 
discovered by any one freshly looking for it. It is easier for 
consciousness to retain a given weak impression than to take in a 

1 Cf. Fick, Anatoniie nnd Physiolo^ie der SInnesorg-ane, p. 54 ; Hering, Der 
TejHperatursinn, (Hermann, iii., 2), p. 415, seq. ; Richet, Recherches sur la Sensibiliie, 
p. 42, seq. 

'^ Richet, Recherches^ p. 168, 222. 



no OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

fresh impression which in itself is stronger.^ An example of the 
lowering of the threshold of consciousness is given in the capacity 
which prisoners, after long confinement in dark places, acquire for 
observing the smallest objects and the faintest differences in the 
light. In order to practise his eye in discriminating very small 
differences of light, Lavoisier confined himself for six weeks to a 
room draped in black. — The lowering of the threshold of conscious- 
ness is thus conditioned in a manner analogous to its raising ; the 
gradual decrease of impressions does not destroy a sensation, any 
more than their gradual increase produces one. 

Perfectly constant and uniform impressions and states do not 
come into consciousness, are not accompanied by sensations. The 
pressure of the air is noticed only when it varies. The very rapid 
movement of the earth carries us round without our knowing it, 
because it is constant. We do not notice that the blood-vessels of 
the retina cast shadows on the retina itself, because we have always 
been accustomed to them ; these shadows do, on the contrary, 
attract notice, when they are artificially cast on to parts of the 
retina accustomed to stronger impressions of light. A substance 
affords sensations of taste only if its taste is different from that of 
the saliva. For the tongue is accustomed to the saliva, and 
therefore deadened to its slightly salt taste.^ 

Fechner has tried to find a mathematical formula to express the 
ratio in which the effect produced by each stimulus is determined 
by the preceding stimulus. From experiments made by himself 
and others, he thinks the rule may be deduced that the increase in 
sensation^ resulting from an increase in the strejtgth of the stimulus ^ 
depends, not ,on the absolute increase, but on the relation of the 
increase to the preceding stimulus. If the sensation is to increase 
to a certain degree, the stimulus must increase the more, the 
stronger it is to begin with. Fechner expresses this by saying 
that the strength of the stimulus must increase in geometrical 
progressio7i, in order that the sensation may increase in arith- 
metical progression. If the sensation is to rise from i to 2, 
the stimulus must rise from 10 to 100 ; and that the one may 
rise from 2 to 3 the other must rise from 100 to 1,000, and so 
forth. Fechner himself allowed that this rule holds good only 
for stimuli of a medium strength* There is a definite limit to 

1 Richet, Recherches sur la Sensibilite, p. 170, seg. 

2 Helmholtz, Physiologische Optik, p. 161 ; Henle, Ueber den Geschmackssinn ("On 
the Sense of Taste ") {Anthropol. Vortrdge, ii.), p. 18. [Bernstein, Five Senses of Man, 
p. 80, seq. (Tr.)] 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION in 

the sensibility of the visual organ, and if two stimuli of unequal 
strength both exceed this limit, the difference between them cannot, 
from the nature of the case, be apprehended. 

The lower limit to the rule is conditioned by the fact, that, 
when the stimuli are very weak, the internal condition of the 
organ and of the nervous system comes appreciably into play. 
In respect of the eye, the so-called "natural light,^' which 
arises without any external influence, effects a sort of "normal 
hallucination.^' 1 The other senses also seem to be never wholly 
free from subjective sensations, which become of much im- 
portance only when external stimuli are very weak. Very weak 
stimuli are, moreover, incapable of overcoming the resistance 
offered by the retina.^ But even with regard to stimuli of medium 
strength, the universality of the rule has been brought into 
question ; it appears to have undisputed approximate validity 
only for medium stimuli in the provinces of the visual and muscular 
senses, and perhaps of the sense of hearing. The question which 
still awaits a satisfactory answer is, whether special reasons can 
be shown for the exceptions to the rule which occur in several 
of the sense-provinces. 

But whether a mathematical formula can be successfully 
applied or not, all experience points to the fact that the rise 
and prominence of sensations are determined by their reciprocal 
relation. Every sensation, as it emerges, has to undergo a struggle 
with other possibilities of sensation, and it depends on the result 
of this struggle whether the sensation comes at all into con- 
sciousness and with what degree of clearness and definiteness. 
The several members in the series of sensations are not therefore 
absolutely independent of one another. This is ground where 
it is difficult to find the right expressions. For if it is said that 
sensations fuse through rapid succession, or where the difference 
in strength is too small or too great, it may be objected that 
under these circumstances sensations do not separately arise at all, 

_ 1 "The black that we see in the dark and when our eyes are shut, is a sensation of 
light which we have without external stimulus, not to be confounded with the seeing 
nothing which we have in the finger or at the back of the head, and not to be compared 
to the hearing nothing when there is no external sound. The black which we see when 
our eyes are closed, is only the same sensation of light which we have when we 
look at a black surface, and which may go through all gradations up to the strongest 
sensation of light ; indeed the internal black in the eye itself is sometimes changed by 
purely internal causes into clear light, and is sprinkled, so to speak, with luminous 
phenomena. On closer attention, we discover in the black of the closed eye a sort of fine 
light-dust, the abundance of which varies in different persons and different conditions of 
the eye, and which in pathological states may amount to brilliant appearances of light/* 
G. Th. Fechner, Elemente der Psycho-physik.^ i, p. 165, ^eq. 
2 E. Kraepelin in Wundt's Stndien, ii., p. 324. 



112 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

and that consequently they cannot be said to fuse. We stand 
here at the very threshold of consciousness, where the psychical 
elements approach unconsciousness, and where, consequently, 
psychological terms can be only half figuratively employed. The 
general psychological bearing of the phenomena seems, however, 
clear enough ; there is 7io series of absolutely independent sensations^ 
but every sensation is determined by its relation to the 07ie experienced 
imjnediately before it or at the same time. 

4. A corresponding rule is found to hold for the quality of 
sensations. 

The same excitation may, under different circumstances, produce 
the sensation now of warmth, now of cold. If, e.g.^ the hand 
is placed in a vessel of the same temperature as the room, 
a temperature to which it is accustomed, warmth is felt, because 
the radiation of heat from the hand is prevented in the smaller 
space. If one vessel is filled with water of the temperature cor- 
responding to that of the hand, a second with water of a higher, 
and a third with water of a lower temperature, and if the right 
hand is dipped in the second and the left hand in the third vessel; 
and then both together in the first vessel, the right hand will feel 
cold and the left hand warm in this first vessel where previously 
neither would have felt cold or warmth. 

The same movement is felt either as exertion or as rest, ac- 
cording as it succeeds a slower or a more violent movement. The 
sense of rest, indeed, only properly arises through contrast to the 
sense of change or motion. Sudden cessation of a stimulus may 
give rise to a very lively sensation, as when an unexpected pause 
in a loud piece of music startles the audience, or when the miller 
is awakened by the stopping of the mill. The same surface appears 
rough or smooth according to the character of the preceding or 
accompanying sensations of touch. The taste of wine is brought 
out by eating cheese ; after bitter or salt tastes water seems sweet. 

This effect of contrast^ through which the special quality of sen- 
sation is seen to be subject to conditions similar to those that 
determine the rise of sensation in general, is especially conspicuous 
in the province of visual sensations. 

To see only one single colour would be the same as seeing no 
colour at all. If several very small coloured objects are placed side 
by side, their colour quality may often be apprehended, although 
that of one of them, at the same visual angle, cannot be recognised.^ 

1 Hermann's Handbuch, iii., p. 199. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 113 

The deepest black is apprehended only by the side of the purest 
white, and in contrast to it. The different colour qualities come 
out most strongly (are most deeply " saturated ^0 when accom- 
panied by their complementary colours. Colours are called com- 
plementary when their combined rays produce the sensation of 
grey or white. The complementary colours are : — 



Red 




. Bluish green. 


Orange . 




. Azure blue. 


Yellow . 




. Indigo blue (ultramarine blue) 


Green 




. Purple. 


Violet 




. Yellowish green. 



If one colour is placed by the side of another which is not its 
complementary colour, the one will always be affected by the 
complementary colour of the other. A grey strip on a coloured 
ground receives a tinge of the colour complementary to the ground, 
and if a grey strip is laid upon a succession of differently coloured 
pieces of paper, it acquires a different tinge on each piece of paper. 
In making this experiment, we must place a piece of thin transparent 
paper over the grey strip ; for if there is a distinct outline between 
the strip and the ground, the tinge does not appear.^ 

Contrast may be not only simultaneous but also successive, A 
colour will appear " saturated," not only when seen by the side of 
its complementary colour, but also when it immediately follows it. 
If the eye is allowed to dwell for some time on a certain colour, it 
becomes the more disposed to a strong sensation of the comple- 
mentary colour. And if the eye is transferred from a colour to a 
white or grey ground, it sees in the latter a tinge of the comple- 
mentary colour ; thus a reddish gleam is seen on a white wall, if a 
green curtain has been previously gazed at. The most distinctly 
marked sensation of a colour arises through the combination of 
simultaneous and successive contrast. 

Without being noticed, similar effects of contrast enter into all 
our sensations of colour. We seldom look long at one point, for it 
requires a certain effort to fix the gaze for even a short time, and 
after-images from the one point of the visual orbit influence in 
consequence the apprehension of other points. The most com- 
plicated combinations of simultaneous and successive contrasts are 
often produced. 

1 \Cf. Bernstein, p. 161. (Tr.)] 

I 



114 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

The effect of contrast does not rest upon erroneous inference 
or upon illusion. Such an explanation would be possible only if the 
effect of contrast were confined to exceptional cases. But it is 
always experienced in a greater or less degree, at any rate in the 
province of sight, and it is consequently impossible to point out 
a normal sensation. What is the ground on which a colour must 
be seen for its true quality to be recognized ? In practice, of 
course, a normal or typical shade is taken as the true colour ; but 
in reality every determination of quality is relative. In its quality, 
as in its existence, every sensation is determined through its 
relation to other sensations.^ 

5. The study of sensations thus corroborates the general account 
of consciousness given in an earlier chapter (II. 5). It is impos- 
sible to resolve consciousness into a series of simple and self- 
existent sensations, absolutely independent of one another. A 
sensation which stands in no relation to any other is not known 
to us. This law may be called ^Ae law of relativity^' From 
the moment of its first coming into beings the existence and 
properties of a sensation are determined by its relation to other 
sensations. 

The law of relativity accords with the principal law of the 
physiology of the nervous system, that no constant state, but only a 
change effected with a certain suddenness, calls to life a nerve- 
process. The preceding state of the organism and of conscious- 
ness thus forms a background to the succeeding state. Effect of 
contrast in its narrow sense is only a specially striking example of 
what in some measure takes place-, and must take place, in every 
sensation. It is so easily overlooked only when the degree of 
contrast is small, or when two sensations are at such a distance 
from one another that they are not thought of in conjunction; 
the intermediate links are then forgotten. The clearly defined 
and distinct sensations are built up out of a host of slightly differing 
sensations. 

The distinction or the relation may be either simultaneous or 
successive. The successive relation is, however, the most primitive. 
Simultaneous sensations have a tendency to fuse (especially in 

1 In the opinion of some, qualities of sound form an exception, no effect of contrast 
taking place in these. Others maintain that a tone sounds differently, according as it is 
taken in the ascending or descending scale. — If the exception is more than apparent, the 
inquiry must be made whether it may not be founded on special conditions of the sense 
of hearing. 

2 This term was, s6 far as I kjnow, first introduced by Wundt. [For its several appli- 
cations , see Ency, Brit., Art. " Psychology " (under Theory of Presentation). (Tr.)] 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 115 

the departments of touch, taste and smell) ; and since, on the 
other hand, the attention is no more quiescent than is the bodily eye, 
but wanders from point to point, even a complex stimulus is from 
the nature of the case apprehended as successive. Moreover, 
successive apprehension is clearer than simultaneous. Small dis- 
tinctions of weight are more easily perceived by weighing 
successively with the same hand than by weighing simultaneously 
with both hands ; the temperature of two liquids is compared 
better by putting the same hand successively into both, than by 
putting either hand simultaneously into one of the liquids. Very 
faint shadows are noticed only when the object which casts the 
light is moved. Infants and the lower animals appear to have far 
smaller power of distinguishing between simultaneous, than be- 
tween successive stimuli. This accords with the general law of 
relativity and with the fundamental law of the physiology of the 
nervous system ; for excitations at rest do not occasion anything like 
the same change and the same contrast as excitations which succeed 
one another. Successive contrast takes effect more forcibly than 
contrast between things given together.^ 

As already observed, no distinction can be drawn between 
absolute and relative sensation, or between sensations and dif- 
ferences of sensation. This consequence of the psychology and 
physiology of sensation is, however, still disputed even by such a 
writer as Fechner, who has done so much to show the importance 
of the law of relativity. "It is true,'^ he says,^ " that, since we 
never have sensations of a certain kind or strength without preceding 
or accompanying sensations of a different kind or strength, no strict 
experimental proof can be adduced of the possibility of having 
sensation which is not so preceded or accompanied ; but I find 
neither theoretical nor experiential grounds to forbid the sup- 
position, and accordingly believe — nor can the contrary view be 
based on more than a beUef — that, if a child were to awake for the 
first time in an absolutely uniform bright light, all other stimuli 
being so far as possible removed (though it is true they could not 
be completely removed), he would still see the brightness of the 
light.' ^ Fechner recognized correctly that it is necessary to go 

1 E. H. Weber, Tastsinn nnd Gefneingefuhl {^^ '&ens& of Touch and Common Sensa- 
tion") (Wagner's Physiol. Handzvorterbiich, iii., 2), p. 544; Y^o^ixxv^x^ Element e der 
Psychophysik^ i., p. 174; G. H. Schneider, "Warum bemerken wir massig bewegte 
Gegenstiinde leichter als ruhende?" ("Why do we observe objects moving at a moderate 
rate more readily than objects 2itr&st'i"){Vzerteljakrsschr.fur Wissensch. Philos., ii.) 
p. 41T. 

2 In Sachen der Psychophysik^ p. 114. 

I 2 



ii6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

back to the first sensation, that is, to the beginning of conscious- 
ness, if the law of relativity is to be escaped. His example, how- 
ever, affords no absolute beginning ; for the child awaking to the 
brightness of the light, would have had general and motor, and 
perhaps other sensations, before he received the sensation of light ; 
this latter sensation would therefore have those indefinite sensations 
as a background, and consequently would make its appearance 
with a character different from all later sensations of light. Per- 
haps preparations might even have been made for it by internally 
aroused processes in the visual organ, in consequence of which the 
threshold would have been already crossed. Moreover, the light- 
stimulus (even if in itself absolutely uniform) does not produce 
precisely the same effect in two successive moments ; in the first 
moment there is a vague apprehension and excitement which only 
gradually gives way to sight proper ; and in this transition the law 
of relativity takes effect, for the state in each moment is determined 
by that which preceded it. This at least is certain, that the more 
nearly a mental state approaches to absolute unity, or rather sim- 
plicity, the closer is the approach to the confines of consciousness. 
{€/. II. 5.) It cannot therefore be supposed that all shades of 
difference and all rhythm can disappear while consciousness still 
exists.^ 

If the law of relativity has complete validity, no sharp line can 
be drawn between sensation and thought. In the way in which, in 
successive relativity (e.^; in the effect of successive contrast), the 
preceding determines the succeeding sensation, an elementary 
memory is apparent. The influence of distance in time, of op- 
position and contrast, shows us sensation as a discrimination, an 
apprehension of differences, an elementary comparison. Here 

1 Stumpf {Tonpsyc/wlo£-ze, i., p. 10) objected to this {apropos of my article "Zur 
Psychologie der Gefiihle" ("On the Psychology of the Feelings") in the ^^ Philoso- 
phischen Monatsheften" 1880, in which the above line of thought had already appeared), 
that just as certainly as the conscious life of the individual must have had a beginning, 
there must have been a first sensation ; and since this could not stand in relation to any 
other sensation, he regarded the law of relativity as condemned. — It is not, however, so 
certain that there must have been one first sensation. It is also conceivable {cf. Ill, 
6 and 9) that several sensations, mutually conditioning one another, should emerge 
together ; and this is, in fact, the most probable view, for every organism, at every 
instant, is subject tovarious different external influences, while, in addition, the internal 
states of the organism act more or less upon the brain. — Stumpf does not take into 
account the fact that, from conscious life as we know it and are able psychologically to 
study it, we cannot make in the slightest degree intelligible a first simple sensation of this 
kind. If conscious life begins with a single first sensation, then it begins with a condition 
to which we have no parallel. {Cf. also II. 5.) Noteworthy in the extreme is the 
conclusion which Stumpf draws from the necessity of a single first sensation: "The 
universality and necessity of relativity in the emergence of sensations, is to be regarded 
merely as a something acquired, as a ' second nature,' like every strong habit." If 
the peculiar property of our conscious life, expressed in the law of relativity, is a habit, 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 117 

therefore is the very simplest form of the same conscious activity, 
which at higher stages of development makes its appearance as 
thought proper. And, finally, it is clear that the interaction among 
sensations, which conditions their rise and their quality, is possible 
only because all sensations are members of one and the same con- 
sciousness, which embraces and unites them. No contrast is 
possible between my sensation of red and another person^s 
sensation of bluish green. Even if we conceive consciousness as 
a series of sensations^ synthesis is still therefore a necessary pre- 
supposition. 

A main point in the philosophy of Kant is corrected by these 
results. Kant distinguished sharply between the matter and the 
form of our knowledge. Sensations he regarded as a passively re- 
ceived matter, which is arranged by a formative activity, derived 
from a source wholly different from sensations. These latter, the 
material of knowledge, are, according to Kant, given^ while the 
forms in which the material is arranged and worked up, are d 
priori^ that is to say, lie in the nature of our consciousness. Kant's 
argument is that '^ that in which alone sensations can be arranged 
and put in a certain form cannot itself be sensation." According to 
the law of relativity, however, sensations form and determine one 
another uninterruptedly, and no absolutely unformed matter is to be 
found in consciousness ; such matter would involve the possibility of 
pure, absolutely independent sensations. The difference between 
matter and form is only one of degree. Psychological experience 
affords only approximations to purely passive sensations — and even 
these are approximations to the confines of consciousness.^ 

6, Even if the sensations are regarded as only given or received, 
it must be observed that they are not all derived from the external 
world. For in the first place the organism is itself a little world, 

then it is a habit which is acquired very early (immediately after the first sensation), and 
a "second nature" that appears so early might well be placed in the rank of a "first 
nature." As is seen, Stumpf does not really reject the law of relativity, although he 
denies that it states an original property of conscious life. He tries to draw a distinction 
between the sensation itself, and its discrimination. But every proper discrimination 
pre-supposes the interaction of the sensations themselves, which is the earliest form of the 
conscious activity, called at a higher stage comparison and judgment. Language has 
provided no perfectly adequate expression for a relation so elementary as this. 

1 This was clearly seen by Salomon Maimon, one of the most penetrating disciples 
of Kant. "Sensation," he says, "is a modification of the cognitive faculty, realized 
in it only through endurance (without spontaneity) ; but it is a viere idea to which 
we may approach through the lowering of conscio7csness, but which we can never 
really reach." Verstich iiber die Trajtscendentalphiloso_phie {'''''EjSSSiY on the Transcen- 
dental Philosophy"), Berlin 1790, p. 168. Maimon is, however, inconsistent in his Fhilo- 
sophischen Worterbtcch ("Dictionary") (1791), when he defines " sensibility " as "the 
capacity of perceiving sensuous qualities in themselves, apart fro7n all connection and 
relation of one to another," — P. 14. 



ii8 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

confronting the greater world with a certain independence. Its 
own internal activities yield important impressions (general 
sensations). Nutrition, the circulation of the blood and respiration 
pursue their course independently, to a certain extent, of what 
passes without ; and these internal processes excite stronger or 
weaker sensations. In the second place, the organism does not 
wait for the external world to bring stimuli to it, but executes 
movements which are accompanied by sensations : 7notor-sensations. 
Even before sensations arise through excitations from the external 
world, movements, as some hold,^ are executed in consequence of 
the superabundance of potential energy in the nerve-centres. These 
movements, from a psychological point of view spontaneous and 
unmotived, can occasion motor-sensations, which are probably 
among the very earliest sensations of dawning consciousness. 

The change or transition, which every conscious act presupposes, 
or in which it consists, may thus be as well active as passive in 
character. Excitations not only come to us from without, but also 
pass out from us. And the active changes may even perhaps 
precede the passive, since conscious life first finds expression in 
spontaneous, reflective and instinctive movements {cf, IV. 4 — 6). 

From the psychological standpoint, motor-sensations may be 
divided into two groups ; into sensation of effort and muscular 
sensation. Seiisation of effort is the sensation of the energy 
exerted in carrying out a certain movement. We adjust and 
measure, voluntarily or involuntarily, the degree of effort required 
for a certain movement, and, before the actual movement, can have 
a pre-experience of the energy as thus called up. Similarly, with- 
out actually attempting a movement, we can feel our powerlessness 
and exhaustion. Muscular sensation is a sensation of the 
temporary state of one or more muscles. . It may come from 
muscles which are not under the control of higher nerve-centres 
(as the sensation of cramp in the leg, colic, labour-throes), but may 
also result from the state into which the muscle is put by motor- 
impulses from the brain (sensation of muscular tension, or of 
fatigue). 

On the other hand, it is still uncertain whether these two classes 
of sensations are equally distinct as regards their corresponding phy- 
siological processes. It is held by some that the motor-process set 
up in the motor-centres of the brain, before leaving the brain, sends 
through nerve-fibres an excitation from the motor to the sensory 

1 [Bain, Mental Science^ p. 145'^^. (Tr.)J 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 119 

centres. This would give a class of sensations due to excitations 
originating in the brain itself. These have been called sensations 
of innervatio7i. This view was held by Joh. Miiller/ who relied 
chiefly on the argument that, before an actual movement, before 
raising a weight or mounting a flight of steps, we can feel 
the degree of effort about to be made. Others explain all 
motor-sensations, sensation of effort as well as actual muscular 
sensation, as due to excitations sent from the muscle to the brain, 
which thus receives as it were notice of the commencing or com- 
pleted contraction of the muscle. That we feel or calculate in 
advance theforce to be applied, is, then, to be explained by the 
effect of experience and habit. If this latter view is correct, and 
it has been much strengthened by Sachs' discovery of sensory 
nerves passing from the inside of the muscle to the higher centres,^ 
then in the sensation of effort we experience not the actual com- 
mencing motor-process, but its effect.^ 

7. In almost all special sensations, the movements of the organ- 
ism play an important part, so that on closer examination sensations 
of effort or muscular sensations are found as elements in states 
which on superficial consideration we take to be perfectly simple. 
In tasting, the movement of the tongue is of importance ; solid 
pieces of food are pressed against the hard palate, and only so can 
be tasted. Sensations of smell arise only if the air is drawn in 
through the nose. If the air be kept out, all sensation of smell 
ceases, even in a heavily scented atmosphere. In hearing, we move 
the body, or at any rate the head, until we find the position in 
which the sound is loudest. In attentive listening the muscles of 
the tympanum contract. Movement is, however, especially im- 
portant in the senses of sight and touch. The eye must be 
accommodated to the distance of the object, and this is effected by 
contraction of delicate muscles, the surface of the lens being thus 
made more convex ; this change is effected with a certain effort. 
In every definite position of the eye some muscles are actively 
contracted, others passively relaxed ; every position of the eye is 
therefore accompanied by a certain sensation of effort or a mus- 
cular sensation. We move the eye, or even the whole head, 

1 Handbiick der Physiologie, Coblenz, 1840, ii., p. 500. — According to Panum, stimuli 
from the muscle and immediate stimuli of innervation cooperate in the sensation of force. 
Nervevaevets Fysiologi (" Physiology of the Nerve-tissue), p. 95. 

2 Sachs, " Physiol, 'u. Anatom. Untersuchungen ilber die sensiblen Nerven der 
Muskeln "(" Physiological and Anatomical Investigations into the Sensitive Nerves of 
the Muscles") (Reicherts u. Dubois Reymond's Archzv, 1874). 

3 [For full discussion of the question, see Brain, 1887. (Tr.)] 



I20 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

until the excitation of light falls upon the place of most dis- 
tinct vision (the yellow spot). The delicacy of the sense of 
touch in the different parts of the body stands in a definite 
relation to the mobiHty of those parts ; it is (according to Weber) 
greatest in the tongue, the lips and the fingers, least in the chest 
and back. To the movable parts of the body the sense of touch 
owes its importance ; it is by their means that active experiment 
is possible. Touch and sight, the two senses linked to the most 
movable organs, are in conjunction the most powerful means we 
possess of determining our relations to the external world. 

We are thus not given over as a purely passive prey to the im- 
pressions of the external world. In the spontaneous and reflex 
movements which precede the birth of consciousness, an active 
nature is already apparent. The excitations from without soon, 
moreover^ call forth movements, which serve to retain or pursue 
them. There is now an active turning towards the excitation, as 
when an infant follows or searches for a light with his head or eyes.^ 
An involuntary search and accommodation help to determine the 
character of the sensations. How primitive this first form of 
attention is, may be judged from the fact that a pigeon de- 
prived of its cerebrum will turn its head after a light that is 
being moved away. Attention still bears here the stamp of reflex 
movement. A conscious concentration of attention (voluntary 
attention) presupposes a certain development of the faculty of 
remembering, and of forming ideas independently of purely 
momentary impressions, and is therefore found only at a higher 
stage than that now under consideration. 

The sensation of attention is closely related to the sensation of 
effort or muscular sensation, and is perhaps connected with the 
fact that a stronger or weaker contraction takes place in the 
muscles of the organ concerned. 

Condillac's theory, that attention is only an " exclusive " sensa- 
tion,2 js^ then, contradicted even by direct, subjective observation. 
If a sensation takes complete possession and almost succeeds in 
driving all else out of consciousness, it then arrests our activity 

1 " I saw a seven months' child, when two days old, in the evening at dusk repeatedly 
turn his head towards the window and the light, even when he was moved to another part 
of the room. He doubtless looked for the light." Kussmaul, Untersuch7ingen iiber das 

^S eelejtleben des ne^igebornen Menschen ("Investigations into the Mental Life of In- 
fants"), p. 26. — It is only later, according to Preyer, Die Seele des Kindes, p. 31 
{The Mind of the Child. Trans, in Int. Educatl. Series, vol. i. pp. 43, 44), when a child 
is twenty-three days old, that its eyes follow the light without movement of the head, 

2 Logigne, i. 7 ; cf. Traite des Sensations^ i. 2^ i. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 121 

also. An exclusive sensation therefore presz^/^poses attention, but is 
not one with it. Besides, how does a sensation become exclusive ? 
Excitations can flow in upon us simultaneously from several sides. 
The eye, e.g:, receives simultaneous excitations from several points 
of light. Several senses, moreover, may be in operation together. 
If purely passive, sensuous perception would afford at every instant 
a chaos of diverse sensations. But from the multitude of these 
diverse sensations, in every tiny instant, 072e is selected which 
becomes the centre. Reflexly and instinctively the attention moves 
from one excitation to another. As has been seen, the successive 
is more easily and earlier apprehended than the simultaneous ; 
this seems to stand in connection with the great importance of 
movement in sensuous perception.-*- 

The motive which decides the attention to leave one excitation 
and turn to another is to be looked for in a sense of fatigue or in a 
feeling of dulness, which makes it a necessity or a recreation to 
turn to a new excitation, especially to one which is a natural 
counterpart or supplement of the preceding excitation (c/. the effect 
of contrast). In every such transition an elementary choice takes 
place. 

B. Ideation. 

I. In the interaction of sensations and in involuntary attention, 
unity and activity of consciousness are as yet manifested only in a 
quite elementary way ; the phenomena are here so simple that it is 
even difflcult to find psychological expressions for them. But the 
province of pure sensations is now to be overstepped, and 
attention turned to the fact that the new sensations are determined 
and modified not only by the immediately preceding and 
simultaneous sensations, but also by others more remote in 
time. This takes place by the new sensation re-exciting earlier 
sensations. 

This presupposes that sensations repeat themselves. A con- 
sciousness that were to pass continually to new impressions, from 
A to B^ from B to C, and so forth, would never advance beyond the 

1 Condillac, however, in spite of his own definition, recognizes the independence of the 
element of attention, when he says, " Lorsqu'une campagne s'offre a ma vue, je vois tout 
d'un premier coup d'oeil, et je ne discerne rien encore. Pour demeler differens objets et 
me faire une idee distincte de leur forme et de leur situation, il faut que farrete vies 7-e- 
gards sur chacun d'eux . ._ . Ce regard est nne action ;parlaqtielle mon ceil tend a Vobjet 
. . . par cette raison je lui donne le nom d'attention ; et il m'est evident que cette direc- 
tion ds I' organs est toute la part que le corps peut avoir a I'attention," 



122 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

elementary stage we have described. But no consciousness is thus 
constituted. Beings endowed with consciousness have their definite 
conditions of Hfe, which do not merely make existence possible, 
but also narrow the horizon, since the series of impressions is not in- 
finite but unfolds itself with a certain rhythm. The experiences 
(sensations) of finite beings must be limited, because their exist- 
ence is bound up with certain conditions, some of which are 
constant, while others must recur at not too remote intervals. 
Without repetition no life, and consequently no conscious life, 
would be possible. Life consists in an alternation between the 
absorption of matter (assimilation) and the waste of matter 
(disassimilation), between vegetating and functioning. In or- 
ganic functions a rhythmic repetition is therefore found ; as in in- 
spiration and expiration, the circulation of the blood, sleeping and 
waking. And this rhythm in the phenomena of organic life seems 
to be only a special instance of a general law of nature, for there is 
much which points to the conclusion^ that all movements and 
changes in nature are periodic. 

The most elementary consciousness would be one in which 
there was only a rhythmical alternation of pleasure and pain to- 
gether with the accompanying simple sensory and motor sensations. 
Then, if the series of sensations had arrived say at Z>, A would 
occur again — at all events as A^^ for the sensation might not have 
precisely the same quality. A repetition of the same sensations 
would not, however, have any psychological significance, had not 
consciousness the power of reproducing the previous similar sen- 
sations, were these latter on the contrary to disappear without 
leaving the smallest trace. The psychological importance of repe- 
tition consists in this, that — the power of reproduction being 
assumed — it is possible for consciousness to combine earlier 
with later sensations and experiences. We have here a funda- 
mental property of consciousness which admits of no closer ex- 
planation. It is a fact, that when the sensation A occurs again 
after an interval which has been occupied by the sensation B^ it has 
a tendency to reproduce the state which preceded B ; it profits by 
this repetition, since it utilizes the traces previously left behind by ^. 
Here the law of practice^ which holds good for all organic life, 
comes into force. All function is made easier by repetition and 
practice. This is true especially of the functions of the nervous 

1 Herbert Spencer, Fbst PrinciJ>les^ ii. lo ; Jevons, Principles of Science^ second ed., 
pp. 448, 560, seq. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 123 

system ; indeed, all practising of complex movements is properly 
exercise of the central nervous system. The nerve-tracks are, so to 
speak, more practicable the oftener they are traversed. A sensation 
acquires through repetition a certain distinguishing mark, confronts 
with a special character other sensations which, so to speak, can be 
compared with one another, not each with itself. There enters 
a contrast between that which is repeated, familiar, customary, 
and that which is new, not hitherto experienced ; between the 
known and the unknown. — Sometimes the influence of repetition 
and remembrance may call up a sensation which would not other- 
wise arise. The partial tones in a chord can be distinguished 
when there is a lively recollection of the sensation they produce as 
simple tones ; but if some time has elapsed between the sensation 
of the simple tone and the sensation of the chord, it is no longer pos- 
sible to distinguish between them. Two tones so closely related as 
to be only just distinguishable when heard in immediate succession, 
appear to consciousness as one and the same when the interval is 
from half a minute to a minute. If not more than 15 — 30 seconds 
elapse between two sensations of weight, a difference between 
I4i and 15 ozs. may be distinguished; but after the lapse of 40 
seconds this is no longer possible.-"- If we wish for examples from 
more complex phenomena of consciousness, we may think, e.g.^ of 
the difference between reading a book or hearing a piece of music 
for the first and the second time ; the second time everything is 
taken in more clearly and distinctly, without its being precisely 
necessary to think of the first time. 

The reproduction of earlier sensation or experience does not, in 
such cases as these, amount to an actual and distinct recall. 
For the reawakened state fuses immediately with the given 
sensation, and does not stand out beside it as a free and inde- 
pendent representation. There takes place an involuntary classi- 
fication, a reference of the sensation to earlier sensations of 
like kind. To say that little children and blind persons whose 
sight has been restored, must learii to see colours, really means 
that they must learn to recogiiize them, to refer the given sensations 
of colour to similar earlier sensations. The very first sensations of 
colour can be referred only to analogous sensations of different 

1 Helmholtz, Die Lehre von den Toneinpjindjingen (" The Theory of Sensations 
of Tones") (Brunswick, 1863), p, no, Eng, trans, by Ellis, p. 103 ; G. H. Schneider, 
"Die psychologische Ursache der Kontrasterscheinungen " ("The Psychological Cause 
of the Phenomena of Contrast") {Zeitschr. fiir Philosophies 1884), p. 164, seg. ; E. A. 
Weber, " Tastsinn und Gemeingefuhl " ("Sense of Touch and General Feeling") 
(Wagner's H andzvd'rterbiich der Physiologie^ iii. 2), p. 543. 



124 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

modalities, as in the case of the man blind from birth, who, when 
an attempt was made to describe to him the colour scarlet, 
at last exclaimed, " It must be something like the blast of a 
trumpet/' 

In such immediate and involuntary recognition con'SASis percep- 
tion. The psychological process which here takes place may be 
described as the fusing of a reproduction and an actual sensation. 
The percept is thus conceived as compounded out of a representa- 
tion and a sensation ; but the representation does not come into 
consciousness as a free and independent factor, and it may there- 
fore be described as an implicate {gebundne) 7'epresentation. And 
as we called the immediate interaction among successive sensations 
elementary memory, so we may call the memory conditioning the 
percept ^ implicate,^ because what is remembered is not disengaged 
from the sensation which calls it up. Since, finally, the percept 
comes to exist only through the similarity of the given to former 
sensations, the activity which is here displayed may be described 
as an involuntary comparison. And this is an implicate com- 
parison^ since the elements which on account of their similarity 
are combined, do not make their appearance as distinct and inde- 
pendent. The more frequent the repetition, the more easily, 
quickly, and unconsciously is the recognition effected. By repeti- 
tion and practice, the " discrimination-time '^ (which might also be 
called "recognition-time,'') as well as the "will-time" (IV. 6), is 
reduced.^ 

In various experiences, springing in some cases from healthy, in 
some from abnormal states, this contrast between mere sensation 
and perception is clearly apparent. On first awaking from sleep, 
we often have sensations which we cannot recognize. A multi- 
tude of diverse elements emerge into consciousness, without 
being immediately classified. It is only when quite awake that 
we attain to perception proper, and with it to clear consciousness 
of our surroundings. What distinguishes the dreaming from the 
waking consciousness is in great measure this, that the same 
sense-impressions are differently apprehended or explained, and 
differently classified {cf. III. 8). When we are aroused by a 

1 [In a series of recent articles, " Ueber Wiederkennen, Association und psychlsche 
Act\v\tz.t" {Vierteljahrsschrift f. ivissenschaft. Philosophie, xiii. 4, xiv. x, 2, 3) Prof. 
Hoffding elucidates further this process of immediate recognition, and its place in 
association. Cf. also Dr. Ward's recognition of the same process under the name 
assimilation {Ency. Brit., vol. xx., Art. "Psychology," pp. 52,60), quoted by Prof. 
Hoffding in Art. i, p. 437. The two writers differ, however, on the point of (free) 
association by similarity. (Tr.)] 



v] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 125 

stimulus which excites strong interest, — or, as it has been ex- 
pressed, when the "psychical relation" of the stimulus arouses 
us, — we have a percept which is just on the borders between 
dreaming and waking. One of Charcot's patients lost, after a 
nervous illness, the power of perceiving visual objects, although 
the sensibility had scarcely suffered at all. Every time that he 
returned to his birthplace, it seemed strange to him ; he could 
not at once recognize his wife and children, on one occasion not 
even himself when he looked in the glass.^ In some very instruc- 
tive states of disease, the power of understanding (of perceiving) 
spoken or written words is lost, without sight or hearing having 
suffered. The path from the concept to the word is unimpaired, 
although the path from the word to the concept is closed. Kuss- 
maul^ calls this malady word-blindness or word-deafness. Later 
inquiries into the physiology of the brain seem to show that 
sensation and perception are attached to different nerve-centres. 
While sensation seems to be possible even in an animal deprived 
of the cerebrum (as when a pigeon thus mutilated turns its head 
towards the light), perception can take place only Avhen the cere- 
brum is intact. After extensive injury to the occipital lobes, a 
dog no longer understands what he sees and hears. He pays no 
attention when threatened with the whip, passes indifferently by 
his food, does not listen when he is called, etc. Dogs in this 
state are, as Munk expresses it, soicl-blind and soul-deaf^ that 
is to say, they have lost the power of combining sensations with 
the corresponding reproductions, — have thus partially lost percep- 
tion, while sensation is unimpaired. They have gone back to the 
state of earliest youth, and must learn afresh to hear and see {i.e. 
to perceive) [cf,\\. i\.e). < 

The word perception is here employed in the sense given to 
it by some English writers.^ Sibbern appears, although he does 
not express himself quite plainly, to distinguish similarly between 
mere sensation and perception.^ Other writers understand by 
perception a process more complex and comprehensive than 
that just described. Helmholtz, e.g,^ understands by sensations 
the impressions on our senses in so far as they come into 
consciousness merely as states of the body (especially of the 

1 //'c?^///<3;/>rzfz'<:/(^;2<^^ (" Hospital Journal") (Copenhagen, Septembers, 1883). 

2 Die Stovungen der Sprache (" Lingual Affections"), p. 174, seq. 

3 Sir William Hamilton {Lectures on Metaphysics, xxvii.). Herbert Spencer {Pr. of 
Psychology, §353). [Cf. Sully, Outlines 0/ Psychology, p. 147. (Tr.)] 

4 Psychologic, p. 50. 



126 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

nervous system) ; by percepts he understands the same impres- 
sions, in so far as we form out of them ideas of external objects.^ 
In reply to this it must be observed, in the first place, that our 
immediate sensations are not from the first presented to us as 
states of the body or of the nervous system ; we have at first no 
notion that we have a body, not to mention a nervous system, and 
the knowledge of our body is only gradually acquired by means of 
sensations. Besides, with the proposed use of terms, no word 
would be left for the simple psychological operation, by which a 
sensation is brought into relation with a previous similar sensation. 
This act does not involve any consciousness of the external origin 
of the sensation ; it may occur, moreover, in subjective sensations 
and feelings just as well as in those that owe their origin to external 
impressions. 

2. Not only single sensations, but also whole series or groups 
of sensations, can be repeated and recognized. We then have a 
complex percept^ and in reality nearly all our sensuous percepts are 
complex, because as a rule several sensations occur at the same 
time. In complex percepts, the content is arranged partly in the 
form of time, partly in the forms of both time and space. The 
closer examination of the conception of time and space must, how- 
ever, be postponed to the next section (C). Here, on the other hand, 
we shall inquire how the memory and the representations pass from 
the i7ii.plicate to Xh^free state. This transition would not be possible 
if we had only absolutely simple percepts. Were the sensation A to 
be repeated and fused with the idea a^ the process would then be at 
an end. But when a series or group of sensations {^A -\- B -\- C -\- D) 
has frequently recurred, then, when A afterwards appears by itself, 
the representations b^ c, and d^ as well as the representation a, have 
a tendency to re-emerge. Now only a can completely fuse with 
A J by c, and d, in so far as they are not suppressed, must appear 
as something different from the given sensation {A), and conse- 
quently as independent parts or factors of the conscious-content. 
They thus become free ideas or representations. 

Let the object of a complex percept be, e.g., an apple* That I 
perceive an apple means that I have, together or in immediate 
succession, the sensations of colour {A), smell {B), taste (C), 
hardness (Z^), etc., which I recognize in their given combination. 
If now the same sensation of colour recurs, it {A) is not only itself 

1 Die Lehre von den Tonetup/ijidicngen, ist ed. (Brunswick, 1863),' p. loi. Cf. 4th 
ed. p. 6. [In Ellis' translation of an intermediate edition, see p. 9. Tr.] 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 127 

recognized (through the imphcate representation a)jhut also rouses 
representations of the other properties {3,c, and d). I see only the 
red colour behind the leaves but believe what I see to be an apple, 
because I involuntarily supplement the percept (A + a) with the 
notion of the other properties of the apple. A child, who has 
burned himself (B) at the fire (A), has the idea of pain (d) when 
next he sees the fire {A + a), although no pain is present at the 
moment. 

The more numerous the free representations that arise in this way, 
the more there is formed in consciousness an independent field of 
ideas, a world of memory, which confronts with a certain indepen- 
dence the sensations and percepts of the moment. Immediate sen- 
sations then play often a merely subordinate part and act only as 
liberating forces. When we read a book, the paper and the black 
characters scarcely attain to express consciousness, but are lost in 
the ideas and feelings which — at first through many intermediate 
links — they set in motion. Consciousness has now at its disposal 
a content, which makes it to a certain extent independent of the 
influences of the moment ; a life may be passed in memory, a life 
of thought, not merely a life of sensation or perception. The world 
of ideas has been strikingly compared to the blood. In the blood, 
which is formed out of nutritive matter derived from the external 
world, the organism has an internal world {inilieu interieur, 
c/, II, 3), which makes it to some extent independent of the ex- 
ternal world. Similarly consciousness has in its free ideas an 
internal medium, which is formed out of previous sensations, and 
which makes it capable of leading its own life, even when the 
supply of fresh sensations fails. 

We cannot of course completely isolate ourselves from the ex- 
ternal world. Sensations are received at every instant, even when 
we are principally occupied with free ideas. Even in sleep we 
receive sense-impressions. And every sensation has a tendency 
to arouse implicate, as well as free, representations. So that there 
are always two streams in consciousness, of which now one prevails, 
and now the other. The one is determined by the sensation 
present at the moment and by the ideas which it tends to excite, 
the other is composed of the series of free ideas, which have been 
aroused by a previous sensation and which will be continued for 
several instants. The one might be called the ascending, and the 
other the horizontal, current, and the relation between them 
represented thus : — 



128 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY 



[V 



Free flow of ideas 





Horizontal 


current. 










■X 














ia. 


^6 ^1 ^8 ^9 


etc. 




^4 


A A j\ 


A 


-4-) 


<^3 
<^2 














1 

o 

10 



Pprrent (^ top^icate idea . ( a\ f b\ 
^^^^^P^\ Sensation . \a) \B) 



C D 



etc. 



Here A has set in motion a series of free ideas, which have so 
forcibly arrested the attention that they persist not only for one 
moment, {a . . , a^) but for several (r^s . . . aQ), and that the suc- 
ceeding sensations {B, C, D, etc.), are unable to break the series by 
the ideas which they in their turn tend to excite. Perhaps they 
may not even be all recognized ; in the schema we have given, only 
B is recognized, while C and Z) stir merely in the periphery of 
consciousness. — I may be, e.g., on a steamer and sailing along the 
coast. I see the woods, hear the splash of the water, note the 
sighing of the wind, am aware of the conversation of the people 
round me, etc. Now the sight of the woods, e.g., may set in motion 
a series of free ideas. I may think of one spot in it which 
especially pleases me ; from that I pass to the idea of similar 
spots ; a forest landscape of RuisdaeFs occurs to me : where did 
I see it, in Paris or in Dresden ? In Dresden I saw also Raphael's 
Madonna — during the course of this series of ideas {a2 . . , a^ 
the water continues to splash, the wind to sigh, the company to 
converse {B, C, D . . .), without any one of the sensations and 
percepts which they occasion succeeding in interrupting the 
horizontal stream. 

In other cases we abandon ourselves to the immediate sensations, 
as when we listen to music and try to keep out all ideas, so that 
every moment we may fully and perfectly take in the fresh sensations 
of sound. In this case no horizontal current is formed. Rigorous 
musicians even demand that names shall not be given to musical 
compositions, to avoid the suggestion of a dominant set of ideas 
which might weaken the effect of the immediate sensations. — 
When we take a walk for the purpose of mental enjoyment and 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 129 

recreation, we yield ourselves to disconnected and changing im- 
pressions (light, clouds, trees, men, etc.), and permit each to rouse 
an ascending current, until succeeded by a fresh one. The alter- 
nation of dream-images is to be similarly explained. The schema 
for such cases would be : — 

(Zn On Cc} 



ii) ii) (c) 



Between a2, b^^ ^2 • • • there is no connection ; a^^ is interrupted 
by B^ ^2 by C^ and so forth. 

3. Between the two currents, the course of the free ideas and the 
series of the actual percepts, and also between the two elements 
in perception, the sensation and the implicate idea, there is an 
inverse ratio. They endeavour to check and to suppress one 
another. The more energy the one element claims, the less 
from the nature of the case remains for the other. Both elements 
and both currents are present in every state of consciousness, but 
with different degrees of strength. If they are equally strong, a 
rhythmical alternation occurs, so that now the sensation, now the 
representation, has the upper hand. They do battle for the attention ; 
but equilibrium between them would presuppose that they could both 
be presented with equal clearness to consciousness, — a thing which 
is impossible, for consciousness, like the point of most distinct 
vision in the retina, is always concentrated in one special direction. 
In some moments we are almost wholly under the control of 
sensations and percepts, in others buried in ourselves in reflection 
and deep thought, when the many sensations and percepts dis- 
appear in a single, often narrow but brilliantly illuminated, current 
of ideas. The difference between the two elements in perception 
appears in the fact, that the colours of a landscape seem fresher 
when we look at it with the head turned round. Spencer is 
doubtless correct in giving as the explanation, that the act of 
recognition is more easily excluded because of the unwonted 
position, so that consciousness, instead of explaining the sensations, 
is wholly occupied with taking them in as vividly as possible.-^ 

As the relation between the two currents and between the two 

1 Kant had already seen the inverse ratio of sensation to perception {AnthroJ)ologie, 
§ 19). Attention has since been called to it by ¥r\e.?,{PsychIsche Anthropologie)^ i. p, 96, ii. 
p. 30, and by William 1^2iX^^X.cyi\(^Discussions on P kilos.), p. 63 ; Spencer, in an interesting 
chapter {Principles of Psychology, pt. vi. ch. 18), has described the relation with most 
exactness. 

K 



I30 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

elements of perception is different in the same individual at 
different times, so too is it different in different individuals. The 
bent of some is to give themselves up wholly to the play of sensa- 
tions (musical and artistic natures) ; for others sensations are of 
value only in so far as they may be recognized and classified (ob- 
servers, naturalists) ; while others again live mainly in free ideas, 
in memory, in imagination, or in abstract thought. 

The complex nature of perception affords an important contri- 
bution to the determination of the relation between sensuous per- 
ception and thought. Since perception rests on a process which 
may be described as involuntary comparison, it manifests itself as 
an activity of thought, by means of which we appropriate what is 
given in the sensation, incorporate the sensation into the content 
of our consciousness. If, then, an activity of thought is manifested 
in sensuous perception, it is evident that sensuous perception and 
thought cannot be two wholly distinct activities of consciousness. 
There is no such thing as absolutely passive sensuous perception. 
What is received into consciousness is at once worked up in 
accordance with the laws of consciousness. 

Kant first demonstrated clearly the importance of reproduction, 
of memory, for sensuous perception. In the activity by which the 
varied matter given in sensation is appropriated ("apprehended^'), 
are connected, according to Kant, sensuous perception and under- 
standing, the two " extremes '^ of our knowledge.^ Earlier psycho- 
logists either distinguished sharply between perception and thought 
as two absolutely distinct functions (Plato), or else conceived per- 
ception as obscure thought (Leibniz), or thought as transformed 
perception (Condillac). 

4. The question here obtrudes itself. How does the free flow of 
ideas come to be recognised by consciousness as distinct from the 
actual percepts ? We cannot ascribe to consciousness an original 
knowledge of this distinction. There is, indeed, as a rule a difference 
in the degree of strength of a memory-image and a percept ; but 
this difference may be very small, and may even quite disappear. 
In any case, the first time that a present impression calls out the 
image of earlier memories, we cannot know what the difference of 
strength signifies. It may cause greater attention to be paid to the 
actual impression than to the remembered image ; but in this there 
would be nothing to prevent the latter from seeming equally real. 

1 ^Kritik der reinen Vermcnft, (Kehrbach's Ausgabe), pp. 130 and 134 [Max Miiller's 
trans., pp. 105, 109] ; Berkeley, in his Theory of Vision^ had already pointed out theconn- 
plex chara,ctQr of perception. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 131 

It must be with dawning consciousness as with dream-consciousness: 
all that offers is at first taken for current coin, and no grounds are 
present for arranging the content of consciousness in two different 
spheres, in the world of possibility and imagination on the one 
hand, and the world of reality and perception on the other. On 
the contrary, this contrast is discovered only through experiences 
in great measure bitter. We must often run our head against 
reality, before it becomes clear to us where its limits lie. 

Let us take as our starting point an exclusive sensation such as 
that mentioned by Condillac. Every fresh element of consciousness 
that comes into effect by the side of the given sensation, will 
have an overwhelming tendency to fuse, wherever it can, with 
this sensation, and in any case there will be as slight a change 
as possible, since otherwise the energy and interest would be 
divided. Now this has the further consequence, that the sensation 
or percept present will cast its own strong and clear light on the 
less strongly emerging elements, consequently on the memory- 
images which it awakens and which are closely connected with it. 
By association with the real impression, through which they are 
again called up, the memory-representations will receive the 
impress of reality, even when they are not naturally so distinct as 
the impression. In this way what is given is involuntarily supple- 
mented and extended, so long as no distinctly contradictory ex- 
periences are known. Without such supplement we should not be 
able to " see " an apple, for the visual sensation does not give us alb 
but only one of, the properties of the apple ; the others we supply 
in such a way that we believe them to be apprehended in the per- 
ception of the visual properties. In a percept of this kind the 
representative elements are thus far more numerous than the 
presentative, but they receive from these latter a stamp of reality 
which they would not have of themselves. 

This power, which the present impression exercises, owes its 
origin not to the strength of the sensation alone, but also to the 
active support of all the sensory and motor organs. The primitive 
impulse to movement, from the nature of the case, is turned 
principally in the direction suggested by the given sensations. 
These obtain, in consequence, an effect far beyond that proper to 
their own strength and efficacy. On this account Bain has, with 
justice, given the orginal motor-impulse as an important cause of the 
primitive credulity of consciousness.^ We stand ready, as it were, to 

[1 Mental Science, p. 377. (Tr.)] 

K 2 



132 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

start off at the first signal, and when we have once started it takes 
a great deal to change the direction. So long as we are not re- 
strained we entertain no suspicion. An animal follows the scent 
of his prey, and only when the trap closes over him does it appear 
that one and the same sensation does not always lead to the same 
set of circumstances. In instinct there operates an impulse to 
movement which may often lead astray, as when bees and wasps 
fly to the flowers in a carpet, or when insects lay their eggs in the 
carrion-plant on account of its smell. Many animals will hatch 
any kind of eggs placed under them, or rear the young of other 
animals ; thus a hen has been induced to brood over young weasels, 
and a cat suckled young rats in the place of the kittens it had lost.^ 
A child puts everything he gets hold of into his mouth and sucks 
it, sometimes sustaining in consequence bitter disappointments. 
He learns that there are more things and relations than are 
dreamed of in his simple philosophy. He is thrust back, after his 
first sanguine attack on reality. 

There is more reason to speak of " unconscious judgments " here 
than in immediate sensations. Logically formulated, it is a positive 
conclusion " in the second figure," which the early consciousness 
draws, and through which it makes experiments, which often 
painfully endorse Aristotle's caution against this description of 
judgment. A is C, B is C — from this is drawn the conclusion that 
A must be B. But a finger or a baby's bottle cannot, because it 
has something in common with the breast, in every respect take the 
place of this. Not every smiling countenance is a promise that food 
or play will follow. Because the sheep willingly eats the leaves 
offered it, it does not follow that a bird will do the same. A 
small boy once made the direct assertion, "snow is sugar, for 
snow is white and so is sugar." The sight of white calls up the 
remembrance of sweet, and this association of whiteness and 
sweetness prevails at first in consciousness ; then experience 
pitilessly sunders it, with the result that the idea of sweetness 
receives a special stamp, enters as it were into a special corner 
of consciousness, to which are gradually referred a whole series of 
other ideas which have undergone the same treatment (the idea of 

1 C/. Romanes, MentaV Evohition in Animals (London, 1883), pp. 167, 218, seg.^ I 
may take a further example from Ijy&Ws, Journeys in North America. From the_ mines 
at the summit of the Lehigh the coals are sent down in a railway impelled by its own 
weight. Mules are employed to draw the empty wagons up every day, and in the evening 
are sent down again and allowed to enjoy their food by the way, The samemules, if em- 
ployed in other tasks, are quite willing to draw heavy loads uphill, but obstinately refuse 
to take a cart downhill, make a halt at the slightest decline, and are not to be stirred from 
the spot. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 133 

play in connection with a smiling face, or the capacity for eating 
grass in connection with the nature of an animal, etc.). In other 
words : the first basis is laid of the contrast between possibility and 
reality. Then only the free ideas enter into a relation of definite 
contrast to sensation and percept. The primitive confidence is 
destroyed. 

The same facts exert an influence upon the state immediately 
present during the real impression. The representations called up 
by this impression no longer blend so closely with it. A certain 
doubt and a certain disquiet make themselves felt ; the state is not 
so closed in and homogeneous as at first. The representation of 
that which on former occasions appeared as accompanying or suc- 
ceeding the impression, is no longer the object of perfect conviction. 
If the child has learnt that satisfaction does not always succeed 
hunger, there arises in his consciousness a sense of contrast 
between his present feeling of discomfort and the idea of the satis- 
faction of the need. Previously the two intermingled ; the tran- 
sition from the one state to the other was continuous. Now, on the 
contrary, there is as it were a certain vibration in the ideas as- 
sociated with the percept present. They are not one with it in the 
part they play, nor do they aim at the same effect. 

If by memory is understood not only the power of reproducing 
and recognizing elements of consciousness, but also the power of 
becoming conscious that the elements reproduced were experienced in 
time pasty then it is developed later than expectation and hope. 
At first we attribute to our ideas a practical bearing on the present 
and immediate future, and it is only when constrained by ex- 
perience that we recognize their content as something completely 
past. When free representations have lost their stamp of reality, 
they often disappear with it ; a certain mental development is 
implied in preserving and dwelling upon representations which 
can never again become percepts. 

In this process it is of course also of importance whether the per- 
cejit answering to the representation had usually been experienced 
before or after the present percept. Every state of consciousness 
has as it were two poles : through the one it is associated with the 
preceding, through the other with the succeeding element of con- 
sciousness (thus B is connected through a with A, through y with 
C). Now if C recalls B^ B will be situated before it in the series, 
since in this case the pole y first emerges in consciousness. If, on 
the other hand, A recalls B^ B will be situated behind A^ since the 



134 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

pole a first rises up. The hungry child is quieted by being taken 
on the arm {A), because this is the first step (a) to satisfaction (B) ; 
C comes to be situated, as of itself, behind A in the series. 

This theory,^ which of course employs metaphorical expressions, 
brings out momenta of importance, though only in a secondary, 
supplementary connection. The chief cause of the separation 
between hope and memory is the same as the cause of the 
definite contrast between percept and idea — experience, namely, 
and the disappointments which it brings. This separation is 
aided, but not actually effected, by the definite place which the 
percepts usually occupy in relation to one another. By reason of 
our practical and sanguine nature, 2i progressive reproduction is at 
first the most natural. B will have the tendency to rouse the 
idea of C, but a lesser tendency to rouse the idea of A. The sight 
of a table being laid excites in a hungry man the idea of a meal ; 
but the sight of a meal will not, on the other hand, except for some 
special reason, produce the idea of the table being laid. At the 
lowest stages of consciousness regressive reproduction does not 
apparently take place. Life struggles forward, and is only moved 
to look back by experiencing check. So that when a percept (C) 
chances to give rise to the idea of its predecessor {B)^ this latter 
will at first be frequently presented, not as predecessor but as 
successor, and expectation will arise. Only when experience has 
exercised its refining influence, can the distinction between a and 
7 become of significance ; previously the distinction, under the 
influence of the impulse to movement and of confidence, will 
be overlooked. 

Even apart from the practical tendency, progressive reproduc- 
tion is the most natural. Psychologically, it is not a matter of 
indifference whether we pass from A to B or from B to A j we 
experience the two transitions as different, often as quite opposed. 
The change from light to darkness is thoroughly opposed to that 
from darkness to light ; this is still more strikingly the case with 
the change from pleasure to pain, and from pain to pleasure. Even 
when the contrast is less strong, it is still the case that a different 
arrangement gives different sensations. The order of the dishes 
at a feast is gastronomically not at all indifferent. When we re- 
produce backwards, we really, to be exact, reproduce something 

1 It is found suggested in Robert Zimmermann, Philos. PropcEdeutik^ 3rd. ed. p. 223, 
developed by Taine, De V Intelligence^ livre iii. chap. 7 and 9 ; cf. also James Sully, 
Beliefs its Varieties and its Conditions (Sensation and Intuition) (London, 1874,) p. 89, 
seq. 



v] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 135 

other than what we have experienced ; thus in psychology the order 
of the addenda is not indifferent. It follows that regressive re- 
production cannot be so deeply implanted in us as progressive, 
but presupposes a more advanced development. 

From this exposition we see how far from possible it is in reality 
to carry through the abstraction of the cognitive from the other 
kinds of conscious elements. And yet we are here ignoring many 
questions which may be thrown out as to the influence of feeling 
and will on the course of development above described ; these 
belong to a later section of our inquiries. 

The examples we have employed were taken from primitive 
and elementary stages. But it will be easily seen that the same 
process repeats itself, wherever experience exercises its correc- 
tive influence on over-confident and pre-conceived opinions and 
hopes. This is a fiery test which every endeavour, theoretical 
and practical, has to undergo. The scientific methods of experi- 
ment have grown out of the psychological process just described. 
Every experiment consists in taking the consequences of certain 
definite hypotheses and so testing these hypotheses ; and to such 
experiments life constrains us from the first instant. 

There is still something wanting to give consciousness perfect 
clearness. We have distinguished between elementary, implicate, 
and free memory, and have tried to show how free memory emanci- 
pates itself from perception and expectation. But with this free 
memory may be further combined the definite consciousness, that 
the representation had its origin in an earlier time. The idea of 
time and its development will be treated in the next section. Here 
it is only to be observed, that this defiiiite reference of the repre- 
sentation to a definite point in time affords a main point of dis- 
tinction between memory and free imagination. Imagination 
alters the content and the combinations of ideas, and creates new 
arrangements and groups, while memory proper follows step by step 
the order of the actual percepts. In remembrance as opposed to 
creative imagination, a recognition, a perception, takes effect among 
the free ideas. I can recognize (^perceive) a free idea, just as much 
as I can recognize a sensation. The recognition of an idea implies 
that I have had before, either the idea itself as a free idea, or the 
sensation answering to it. 

5. We have already, in the first chapters of these inquiries 
(I. 4 and 11. 5), found in memory and in the close, and in our ex- 
perience the only, way in which different elements are through it 



136 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

combined into a unity, a typical expression of the nature of conscious- 
ness. My act of remembering takes place at the present moment, 
but that which I remember pertains to an earlier moment. In the 
unity which embraces and holds together the different sensations 
and ideas, and makes their interaction possible, lies the germ of 
the conception of the ego or self. This conception has therefore as 
deep a basis as a psychological conception can have, since it 
expresses the actual fundamental form and fundamental condition 
of conscious life. The difficulties which have been found in it 
are due in great measure to the fact that the ego has been looked 
for as something absolutely simple, which might consequently be 
given in a certain definite state, in a certain definite sensation or idea. 
If we start with the assumption that the ego proper must make 
its appearance as a single element of consciousness, in contrast to 
other elements of consciousness, it is no v/onder that it is looked 
for in vain. Thus Hume, in trying to prove that the idea of self is 
contrary to experience, says : " If any impression gives rise to the 
idea of self, that impression must continue invariably the same, 
through the whole course of our lives ; since self is supposed to 
exist after that manner. But there is no impression constant and 
invariable. Pleasure and pain, grief and joy, passions and sensa- 
tions succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time. It 
cannot, therefore, be from any of these impressions, or from any 
other, that the idea of self is derived ; and consequently there is 
no such idea. . . . For my part, when I enter most intimately into 
what I call myself I always stumble on some particular percep- 
tion ^ or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain 
or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a 
perception, and never can observe anything but the perception.^^ ^ 
In this Hume was perfectly right. But he searches in the wrong 
place. The nature of the ego is manifested in the cofnbinaiion of 
the sensations, ideas, and feelings, and in the forms and laws of 
this combination, consequently in memory and comparison, from 
their purely elementary and automatic forms up to the highest and 
clearest forms which they are capable of taking. Hum^ cannot 
see the wood for the trees. His polemic holds good as against the 
spiritualistic conception of the " soul '^ as an individual substance, 
separated off behind the several elements of consciousness. But 
he offends against actual psychological experience, when he de- 

1 The expression Hume uses here (perception) includes for him both impression and 
idea. 

2 Treatise on Human Nature^ vol. \. pt. iv. section 6. 



v] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 137 

clares mockingly that, " setting aside some few metaphysicians," 
the rest of mankind are nothing but bundles or collections of 
perceptions, which succeed each other with inconceivable rapidity, 
and in a constant current. He overlooks the inner link between 
these conscious elements, which enables them to become elements 
of one and the same consciousness and not of several conscious- 
nesses. And yet he must of course have been led to ask, what 
holds the conscious elements together and makes them into a 
" bundle '^ ? To this end there must be a combining force ; but 
with Hume this force was entirely lost sight of for the individual 
members of the bundle. He even went so far as to attribute inde- 
pendent or substantial existence to the individual percepts. It 
remained for him therefore an insoluble problem, to account for a 
combination among "perceptions," each of which exists inde- 
pendently. " I must confess,'' so he concludes the chapter quoted 
of the " Treatise,'' " that this difficulty is too hard for my under- 
standing." And this much is certain, that if the individual elements 
of consciousness are first represented as quite independent, it will 
be found impossible to bridge them together.^ 

The assumption from which Hume set out in his criticism, 
namely, that the ego must make its appearance as a single element 
of consciousness, is even a contradiction in terms. If the ego and 
a single element of consciousness (sensation, idea, or feeling) — 
even though this element were quite constant — were absolutely co- 
extensive, all other sensations, ideas and feelings would fall, 
in all cases where they could not wholly fuse with this constant 
element, outside the ego, and how could we then have them 1 For 
to the ego must pertain everything that is in consciousness, and it 
cannot therefore be exhausted in a constant feeling or in the 
dominant mass of ideas. The ego must be present in the weak as 
well as in the dominant feelings, in the ideas which attain only to 
the periphery of consciousness as well as in those which gather 
round its centre. It is just the ego, as the expression for the unity 
of consciousness, which makes interaction possible between the 
dominant and the weaker feelings, between the central and the 
peripheral ideas. We distinguish — often a little Pharisaically— 
between our "real self" and the casual, momentary and transitory 
thoughts and feelings ; regarded psychologically, the self embraces 
both the one and the other. 

1 Stuart Mill, who in his earlier writings expressed his views as to the basis of the con- 
ception "self," with some indecision, seems from what he says in the fourth edition of his 
Examination of H audit 07i to have ultimately broken definitely with this view of Hume's. 



13S OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

We must admit that the idea of self cannot be derived from im- 
mediate perception, but must be obtained by inference from the 
general nature and conditions of conscious life. This is a necessary 
consequence of the fact that it is based on an activity, always 
(/.^. so long as consciousness lasts) continued and repeated ; on the 
synthetic activity which all consciousness presupposes. In each 
individual state we have the product of this activity, but not the 
activity itself. It is a fact connected with this, that we can never 
be fully conscious of ourselves. For the very state in which we 
think of our self, is conditioned by synthesis ; self-consciousness, 
just as every other kind of consciousness, is possible only by its 
means. The synthesis, the inner unity in us, always hides 
itself, however deeply we try to penetrate into consciousness ; it is 
the constant presupposition. 

And we must admit further, that the unity, the synthesis, is not 
absolute, but always relative and struggling. This is apparent, 
and not least conspicuously, in the very beginning of conscious 
life, where absolutely scattered and isolated sensations and im- 
pulses seem to enter without any inner connection or unity. 
Some writers have even expressed the opinion that the unity 
of conscious life does not exist from the beginning. Their idea 
is that the mental life begins with sporadic and independent 
sensations, which are only gradually gathered together and brought 
into reciprocal combination.^ Or else they attribute to the young 
child, several egos (a cerebral ego, spinal ego, and an ego for each 
of the central sensory-organs), which are afterwards merged.^ 
The sporadic character of the primitive conscious life could not be 
expressed more strongly. But no psychological nlieaning can be 
given to the merging or growing together of several egos. Views 
such as those referred to rest upon physical or physiological 
analogies. Two heaps of sand may by combination form one heap, 
two organic cells may grow into one new cell. The merging or 
combining of two egos or consciousnesses into one ego, on the other 
hand, is a psychological absurdity. The synthesis of consciousness 
cannot arise from the mere combination of individual parts. It is 
just this which distinguishes mental from material connection, and 
precisely for this reason is the origin of consciousness so great a 
problem. 

Hume was not, however, wholly mistaken in postulating a con- 

1 VIerordt, Physiologie des Kindesalters ("Physiology of Infancy"), pp. 157-169. 

2 Preyer, Die Seele des Kindes, p. 368, seq. (Trans, in Int. Educatl. Series, vol. ii. 
p. 202, seq.) 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 139 

stant element of consciousness as the basis of the idea of self. For 
the unity which is expressed in memory and in synthesis, in the 
inner connection of consciousness, is in itself "^wx^y formal. It is 
the condition of all consciousness ; but each individual conscious- 
ness has, besides this formal, a real unity. The form of con- 
sciousness is common to all conscious beings ; individuality 
consists (in addition to the degree of energy with which the synthesis 
is effected) in the definite co7iient which is embraced by the formal 
unity. And this content cannot change every instant. There must 
be a solid, dominant set of ideas and feelings, in and by which the 
individual may recognize himself; they need not absolutely fill 
every instant of life, but they must constantly recur. And in this 
connection feeling and will are manifestly of greater importance 
than sensations and ideas. The vital feeling (the feeling of 
pleasure and pain accompanying general sensation) with the moods, 
it induces, form a background, often overlooked but not the less 
important, which plays a greater part in our real self-consciousness 
than any idea or thought whatsoever. The said moods, though 
for the most part vague, yet lend a stamp and colour to the whole 
mental content. The more developed and energetic form of our 
self comes to the fore in our dominant aims, in our desire and 
our passion. No true personality is developed without a con- 
centration of the life of feeling and will. A man who has no 
dominant feeling, but flies from one thing to another in a constant 
search for novelty, has not time and strength enough to gather 
himself together or to be himself ; to know oneself is to recognize 
oneself, and this pre-supposes constantly recurrent elements of 
consciousness. 

The formal unity can only to a certain degree persist without the 
real ; if the contrasts within the content are too great, the mould 
will burst. In periods of fermentation or transition, contrasts and 
sudden changes are experienced even in healthy conscious life, 
estranging the individual from himself and threatening to destroy 
his unity. Thus at the age of puberty quite new feelings, new 
desires and wishes, make their appearance ; the individual feels 
himself drawn out of himself. He no longer understands himself. 
This unquiet frame of mind, this bold soaring of the imagination 
makes him strange to himself. Mental maturity also, especially in 
deep natures, is attained through a similar fermentation. Different 
inspirations, ideas and impulses stir chaotically ; mental growth 
often begins, like the formation of the bones, at scattered points. 
The sporadic character of development is only gradually overcome, 



I40 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

and not completely in any individual. But the very fact that the 
inner division and fermentation and the inner doubt are felt^ bears 
witness to a unity which embraces the scattered and contending 
elements. It is only because one and the same self is active in all 
opposing elements that their mutual relation comes into con- 
sciousness. 

Even when the prevailing elements of consciousness are not the 
same throughout the whole of life, but different at different stages 
of development, the formal unity may still be preserved, if the 
transition from one standpoint to another is continuous and 
consequent. A mental revolution does not destroy the unity of the 
self if (like most revolutions) it is but the outcome of a process 
long carried on in secret. 

On the other hand, the advancing dissolution of the real unity 
of the self does at last bring about the dissolution of the formal unity. 
The study of mental diseases exhibits four principal stages of such 
a process of dissolution. 

Mental disease generally begins with a change in the vital feeling 
inexplicable to the patient himself The way in which existence 
ordinarily affects him is interrupted, his accustomed mood is 
changed (generally in the direction of pain). The patient doubts 
his own existence, or regards his own person and everything 
which happens to him as at a great distance. Experience still 
forms a bridge between the old and the new feelings (otherwise the 
patient would not feel estranged from himself) ; but this bridge is 
insecure, because the fundamental inner experiences do not repeat 
themselves. 

At a more advanced stage of mental disease, the patient is so 
far estranged from himself, that he attributes his earlier experiences, 
those previous to his illness, to another subject. He has not for- 
gotten his past, but fails to recognize himself. He speaks of 
himself as of a third or a dead person, or maintains that he was 
deranged at that earlier time. 

In some cases the conscious memory-connection may be lost 
periodically. This is the case in the so-called ""double conscious- 
nessT Two states succeed one another, and the individual appears 
to be a different person in each. Character, memory and dispo- 
sition are different in the two states. Knowledge which the patient 
possesses in the one state is forgotten in the other. Sometimes 
the patient may be conscious of the distinction between his " old " 
and " new " state. In other cases, when such consciousness is no 
longer possible, memories from the past still take effect as an 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 141 

obscure under-current. After a nervous shock, occasioned by an 
escape from drowning, a lady lost several of her senses, the power 
of speech and all distinct remembrances, but always became ex- 
ceedingly agitated at the sight of water, even in a picture. Here 
the continuity with the earlier state was, so to speak, underground. — 
A similar underground connection takes effect, when a person who 
has received an order when hypnotized, executes it when awake at 
the appointed time, without being able to say why he does it. 

But when all the different states and periods are wanting in 
common elements, then the end is approaching. Repetition of the 
stimulus is then useless, since the power of reproduction and com- 
parison is lost. Conscious life is then in complete dissolution.^ 

6. As has already been observed (III. i, 1 1-12), sensations, looked 
at psychologically^ arise out of nothing. They are the primitive 
elements out of which conscious life is woven, but their explanation 
cannot be found within this web, if indeed it can be found at all. 
Ideas in their simplest form are reproduced or recalled sensations. 
But since we distinguish between ideation and continued sensation, 
and since an interval intervenes between the original sensation and 
the idea in which it is renewed, the question arises, whence come 
the ideas ? Do they emerge from a psychological nothing, or do 
they carry on an existence below the threshold of consciousness ? — 
What may be said hypothetically in answer to this question, in 
connection with the general problem of the relation of the un- 
conscious to the conscious, we know already (see III.). We can- 
not help thinking that ideas we have had have a closer relation 
to our consciousness than those which have never appeared in it. 
There is, moreover, the wonderful circumstance that ideas, when 
they re-emerge, may have undergone changes, have been re-grouped 
or blended. The preservation of ideas, although they are not 
always in consciousness, as well as that elaboration of them in 
which consciousness takes no part, justifies us in attributing a 
positive value to the conception of unconscious mental activity, 
in spite of all the difficulties attending the application of the 
law of the persistence of energy to the mental world. When 
traces, residues, or dispositions are spoken of as remaining after 
sensations and ideas have disappeared from consciousness, there is 

1 Cf. with the phenomena described, Taine in t\\Q. Revne Philosophiqiie, i, 289, seq. 
(taken from Krishaber) ; Griesinger, Die Pathologie und Therapie der psychischen 
Zustdnde (''The Pathology and Therapeutics of the Psychical States") 2nd ed. pp. 
334-341 ; Ribot, Les Maladies de la Memoire, p. 86, seq. ; Richet, L' Homme et 
V Intelligence (Paris, 1884), pp. 243, 249, seq. 



142 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

involved just this assumption, that there must be something in 
the mental world analogous to the persistence of energy in material 
nature. There is, however, this difference between material and 
mental nature, that, while in the former we can point to potential 
energy as a definitely given state of equilibrium, in the mental 
world nothing corresponding to this is possible. {Cf, IL 2 
and 8.) Physiologically, there is no real difficulty, for in itself it is 
easy to understand that a cerebral process may arise of the same 
kind as one which occurred on a previous occasion, and that it will 
take place more easily the oftener it is repeated and practised. It 
is possible to represent the molecules concerned as so disposed 
upon repetition, that their equilibrium is more easily disturbed. 
But we cannot form any image which would serve to illustrate the 
meaning of mental tension (potential energy). 

The reason for recurring to this observation is, that the theory 
above criticised, of the independence of ideas, has led to a peculiar 
conception of the retention of ideas. Some psychologists (of 
Herbart's school especially) hold that the faithful and constant 
retention of ideas is the rule, the forgetting of them the exception. 
The problem would thus be, to explain not remembrance but oblivis- 
cence. Every idea would then be supposed to have a tendency to 
self-preservation, to the maintenance of its existence in conscious- 
ness, a tendency checked only by the appearance of other ideas 
with the same tendency. One idea would therefore be easily 
driven out of consciousness by other ideas ; but so soon as these 
disappeared, it would reappear of itself, without requiring any help 
or any motive, just as a watch-spring flies back when the pressure 
is withdrawn. A distinction will consequently be made between 
two kinds of reproduction, the immediate reappearance of an idea 
by virtue of its own force so soon as the hindrances are cleared 
out of the way, and the mediate recall of an idea into consciousness 
by means of its connection with other ideas. An immediate re- 
production occurs, e.g. after sleep, when the ideas of the preceding 
day present themselves, as soon as the hindering influence of 
sleepiness passes off. Even when an idea seems to be quite 
forgotten, it may not be supposed to have wholly disappeared ; it 
remains below the " threshold " of consciousness, and may make 
its appearance again when occasion serves. Memories, the exist- 
ence of which was quite unsuspected, may arise again at the sight 
of the surroundings in which their content was experienced. In 
old age and shortly before death the memories of youth may be 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 143 

awakened, and long -forgotten ideas make themselves felt. Great 
sorrow may recall the past more clearly to memory. It is also 
known from various remarkable accounts of illnesses, that in fever 
and other pathological states, the patient will speak of things and 
utter words which he does not remember at all in his healthy state, 
a circumstance which can be explained only by the supposition 
that ideas previously overlooked obtain under these abnormal 
circumstances an opportunity of obtruding themselves.^ 

It is self-evident that we cannot pronounce any idea to have 
entirely disappeared out of consciousness. We do not know all 
the threads by which the individual, to all appearance casual and 
isolated idea may be united to other elements of consciousness. 
The union between a certain feeling or a certain general sensation 
and a certain idea is here of special significance ; if the feeling or 
the general sensation is repeated, the idea may appear as '^of 
itself" The close connection of the conscious with the uncon- 
scious mental life, makes it possible, besides, for that which 
appears isolated so long as we confine ourselves to clear con- 
sciousness, to have its underground connection. This is why 
our knowledge of ourselves is often so purely empirical ; we 
frequently discover a connection existing between certain ideas 
and feelings, without being able to trace the connecting links. 
Thoughts emerge, feelings come into play, the previous history of 
which is unknown to us, although it must have been concerned in 
our experiences. Thus we may often discover in ourselves 
something of the existence of which we had no suspicion. 

It does not, however, follow that single ideas have a sort of 
individual immortality. The independence of the single idea is 
due only to the fact that it is a special form of the ideational 
activity, that it marks one of the paths which mental activity takes 
under certain definite circumstances. When conscious life has 
received new force through sleep, it is quite natural that it should 
first and with greatest ease take the accustomed course. Our con- 
stant line of thought is to our conscious life what the type is to the 
organism, the form under which in ordinary circumstances de- 
velopment proceeds, and out of which it can be turned only after a 

1 Some special instances are quoted by Carpenter, Mental Physiology^ pp. 436-439. 
After the use of opium also, long forgotten memories may suddenly emerge. Thus De 
Quincey relates {Confessions of an Opitini-eater) that ' ' the minutest incidents of childhood, 
or forgotten scenes of later years, were often revived ; I could not be said to recollect 
them ; for if I had been told of them when waking, I should not have been able to 
acknowledge them as parts of my past experience. But placed as they were before me, in 
dreams like intuitions, and clothed in all their evanescent circumstances and accompany- 
ing feelings, I recognized them instantaneously." 



144 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

certain resistance. The emphasis is not, then, to be laid on the 
single ideas as such, but on the general activity of consciousness. 
No individual idea is preserved and recalled, unless the 
conditions for the general course of conscious life bring it in their 
train. There is here, as it were, an inner mental system of nature, 
which underlies the individual manifestations of life. The single 
ideas may very well help to determine the further development of 
conscious life, without being themselves retained. In reality, then, 
it is the conditions of the retention of ideas, into which psychology 
must inquire. The Herbartian psychology introduces anarchy into 
conscious life, in attributing to the individual ideas imperish- 
able existence. Consciousness is not merely a platform on which 
ideas carry on their struggle for existence, it acts itself in and 
through the individual ideas. 

It accords with this, that we learn to remember, not so much by 
impressing each of the individual ideas as by taking note of their 
combination and connection. The greater the rational connection 
among ideas, the more easily will they be preserved. 

7^. The free meinory -image is distinct not only from the im- 
mediate percept and from the immediate after-effects of sensations 
(after-images^ afters otmds^ etc.)^ but also from certain repre- 
sentations which emerge without external cause, — the so-called 
hallucinatiojts. Hallucinations enter, like percepts, with the 
mark of reality, and it is often difficult, if not impossible, for an 
individual to distinguish them from actual percepts. In this 
respect there are many differences of degree. While one mentally 
deranged will obstinately maintain the reality of his hallucinations, 
there are other cases where the individual knows clearly that what 
he sees are mere phantoms. A man, of whom Bonnet ^ tells us, 
used to see from time to time, without the smallest external cause, 
men, women, birds, carriages, buildings, etc. These figures moved, 
grew or decreased in size. Sometimes all the walls of his room 
seemed to be hung with landscapes. All these made as strong an 
impression on him as if they had been real objects. And yet he 
did not mistake these appearances for realities ; at any rate he was 
always able " to correct his first judgment." They were to him 
like a play, of which he was a spectator, not knowing what scene 
the next instant would bring. — This stamp of involuntariness and 
externality (exteriority) brings the hallucination, as also the dream- 
image^ close to the sensuous percept. The physiological process 

1 Essai ajtalytiqice S7ir r Ajne {Co'gQnhsigenj 1760), chap. 23. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 145 

in the dream-image is indeed partly the same as in halhicinations, 
namely the action of the altered condition of the blood on the 
sensory brain centres/ consequently an automatic stimulation, by 
which the brain is affected in the same way as in normal and 
waking states by impressions of the external world only. However, 
in dream-images the actual impressions received during sleep play 
so great a part (see III. 8), that the images may be classed rather 
with illusio7ts than with hallucinations. By illusion is meant a 
mistaken subjective interpretation of an objective impression, as 
when a white towel in the moonshine is taken for a white figure, 
or wreckage on the coast for men. According to the schema we 
have already employed, an illusion is psychologically characterised 
by the fact that the implicate idea obtains the upperhand over 
the sensory element in the percept [a over A^ so that a at once 
leads to b^ c, d)? — This distinction between hallucination and 
illusion was first drawn by Esquirol.^ There are, however, many 
intermediate forms, and since there must always be a minimum of 
sensuous impressions present, the difference is only one of 
degree. 

The hallucination has this in common with the memory-image, 
that it is sometimes produced voluntarily. An English painter 
possessed the power of calling up the images of his sitters, even 
when they had sat to him for only half an hour, with as vivid 
colours and forms as the reality, so that he could paint from the 
images. From time to time he glanced from the painting to the 
imaginary person and compared the likeness. He ended, it is true, 
by losing the power of distinguishing imaginary persons from real, 
and had to spend thirty years in a lunatic asylum. But there may 
be a power not in the least of a pathological character, of creating 
images with the stamp of reality. Thus Goethe was able, when 
his eyes were closed and his head bent, to see a flower, out of 
which new flowers kept growing, for as long as he liked.'* 

Hallucinations are sometimes memory-images, which suddenly 
take on the stamp of reality. Their most startling and deceptive 

^^ Cf. Wundt, Physiol. Psychol., \. pp. 178-181. (3rd ed. i. pp. 194-197.) 

2 An illusion based on an hallucination is described by Benvenuto Cellini in his 
autobiography (2nd book, ch. 12). In his subterranean prison he had for a long 
while yearned and prayed for the sight of the sun, in a dream at the least. At last one 
morning he had a vision of the sun. But presently the disk of the sun changed into a 
golden disk, within which appeared Christ on the cross, and presently Mary and the child 
as embossed work. As Goethe has observed, his attitude to this visionary sun was that 
of an artificer in metal. Had his imagination been accustomed to move in a different 
direction, he would have made something quite different out of the same vision. 

^ Des Maladies Mentales, i. 2-3. \Cf. Sully, Illicsions, p. 11 and footnote. (Tr.)] 

** Brierre de Boismont, Des Hallticinations^ pp. 27, 462. 



146 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

appearance is, however, when Hke actual percepts they suddenly 
interrupt the "horizontal " series of free ideas. 

As regards strength and vivacity, there is only a difference of 
degree between hallucinations and memory-images. In this 
respect there are great individual differences.^ While in some 
people the memory-images are very vivid and highly coloured, in 
others they are without colour and vague in outline. In some 
people the memory-image approximates to a real percept or an 
hallucination. They see things as clearly and strongly in idea 
as they are in reality, so that the remembrance of the sun may 
even be dazzling. Others, on the contrary, declare that in memory 
they are not able to see any individual objects, but merely have 
indistinct and uncertain ideas of what has been seen ; their 
memories are not vivid enough to deserve the name of images. — 
Not only natural endowment, but also age and exercise, are of 
importance in this connection. The memory-images are most 
vivid during childhood and youth. A child who had been absorbed 
in the memory of a person dear to him, said, " I have been 
dreaming." Poets, students of nature, and travellers have more 
vivid memory-images than students of abstract subjects. There is 
in general an opposition between power of imagination and 
abstract thought, similar in kind to that between real percepts 
and the course of free ideas, and between the two elements in 
perception (sensation and implicate representation) (see V. B. 2 — 3). 

Those who have no individual and lively memory-images may 
yet have a good memory. They remember the fact that they have 
experienced something, although they cannot picture it in memory. 
Very strong sensations have indeed to be remembered in this way 
by every one. A shot from a cannon, a sudden blow or a flash of 
lightning is remembered indirectly rather than directly. Even 
colourless and feeble memories may very well be accurate, and 
serve perfectly to form the basis of a description and estimation of 
the thing experienced. 

Memory is not equally easy and distinct in all the departments 
of sense. To those who have sight, visual memory is commonly 
the most important. The capacity of obtaining distinct ideas from 
the other senses is very differently developed in different indivi- 
duals. The patient of Charcot, already mentioned, (i) possessed 
before his illness a quite extraordinary visual memory ; this he lost 

1 Cf. Fechner, Eletnente der Psychophysik^ ii. pp. 469-491 ; Galton, Statistics of 
Mental J77tagery{^'' M.md^" 1880); also in Inquiries into Hu77ian JFaaclty (Juondon, 1883), 
p. 83, seq. 



v] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION T47 

during his illness, and after recovery a lively memory for sounds 
took its place. Many people have no knowledge whatever of 
representations of smells and tastes, and certainly very few people 
(possessing sight) have distinct motor-representations (correspond- 
ing to motor-presentations).^ As Galton has shown, sharp sight 
and clear visual memory do not always go together ; just as little 
are lively visual memory and great faculty of recognition necessarily 
combined. 

As the illusion and the dream-image come between sensuous per- 
cept and hallucination, and very strong and lively memory-images 
approximate to hallucinations, so on another side there is an inter- 
mediate link between sensuous percept and memory-image, in what 
Fechner has called " meinory-after-unages^ ^ This is a memory- 
image called up immediately after a sensuous impression, before 
its effect has ceased. Even persons who do not otherwise have 
lively and coloured memory-images, may in this way obtain them, 
at any rate for an instant. Their memory-faculty needs as it were 
the helping hand of actual sensation. Here again many individual 
differences are found. With some the after-image, with others the 
concentration of attention upon the after-image, plays the greatest 
part. After observing an object in ordinary daylight, Fechner 
received a complementary after-image ; but when he concentrated 
his memory upon this image, it gave place to a memory-image with 
the natural colour of the object and without complementary after- 
effect. — Observations which I have made, show that even the 
after-image may be recalled. After looking at a window (dark 
cross on light ground) I received a negative after-image (light 
cross on dark ground). This disappeared gradually, but in the spot 
where it had vanished from the visual orbit of the closed eye, there 
remained a white spot of mist, and by concentrating attention on 
this mist, I recovered the after-image. This was properly, then, a 
inemory-after-irnage of aii after-itnage, — The further the memory- 
image is in point of time from the direct sensuous percept, the 
greater the difficulty with which it acquires a lively character. 

b. With regard to the conditions most favourable to the 
preservation and rise of memory-images, three things must be 

1 When the power of writing is lost {agraphia) without being accompanied by word- 
blindness or word-deafness, that is due to the loss of the motor-memories. Although the 
hand itself is all right, the power of recalling the movements which produce the letters is 
lacking. Such a case of " motor-agraphia " is mentioned in the Hospitalstidendc (^L'o 
Danish hospital journal), December 24, 1884. 

2 Loc. cit.^ p. 491, seq. ; Newton had already noted the phenomenon ; Brewster, Life 
of Newton, i. p. 327. 

L 2 



14^ OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

specially noticed ; the circumstances under which the original 
experiences take place, the circumstances during their reproduction, 
and finally the nature of the memories themselves.^ 

Since memory has its physiological expression in the power of 
the organism to preserve traces of received impressions, it is self- 
evident that the fresher and more energetic the general vital process 
the better may things be learnt, i.e,^ the sensuous percepts will 
leave behind more permanent and deeper traces. This is the reason 
why childhood and youth are the proper time for learning, and why 
what is learnt then is more easily preserved than the experiences 
of later years. In old age the events of childhood are consequently 
remembered better, while the events of later years and of quite 
recent occurrence fall into oblivion. " The glasses of an old man 
are cut so as to enable him to see what is near." The brain-process 
lacks the energy to preserve fresh impressions. This more speedy 
dissolution of later acquisitions is a general physiological law. 
{Cf. also IV. 4.) 

Things we have learned and experienced in an unusually ener- 
getic and cheerful frame of mind are more easily retained than 
things we have taken in when enervated and out of humour. In- 
creased vitality counts thus to the score of the newly apprehended 
elements of consciousness. In apoplectic and epileptic cases the 
same circumstance is sometimes found as in old age .* while earlier 
memories are retained, the later ones are wiped out. When 
exhausted with fatigue, the mind is not in a position to collect 
material for memory. 

Time and repetition are required, for memories to be firmly estab- 
lished. What is hastily taken in, is as a rule hastily lost. Actors 
who have learnt a part in a short space of time, do not remem- 
ber it so well as a part properly got by heart. What in England 
is called cramming, does not produce the same thorough results 
as proper study. Connected with this is the remarkable fact that 
in pathological loss of memory the words first forgotten are those 
denoting concrete and individual objects, while names of abstract 
concepts and relations are remembered better. Proper names and 
nouns in general are therefore most frequently forgotten, and after- 
words verbs, adjectives, and pronouns. Kussmaul ^ explains this 

1 Cf. In connection with what follows : Spencer, Principles of Psychology, i. part il, 
chaps. 5-6 ; Carpenter, Mental Physiology^ p. 441, seg. ; Ribot, Les Maladies de la 
Memoire (Paris, 1881). [Also Ebbinghaus, Memory Experiiuents, " Mind," vol. x. 
p. 454. (Tr.)] 

2 I/ia Storungen der Sprache (" Affections of Speech '), pp. 163-165. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 149 

by the fact that while we can easily picture to ourselves persons 
and things without the help of words, abstract notions and relations 
are only firmly established in consciousness by the help of words. 
And since in the cellular tissue of the cerebral cortex, certainly 
far more numerous processes and combinations are required to 
produce an abstract than a concrete concept, the organic links 
which connect the concept with its name must be far more numerous 
in the case of the abstract than of the concrete concept. 

It might seem to contradict this, that so little is remembered of 
the very earliest years of childhood, when the brain must be at its 
freshest. Memory seldom indeed goes back beyond the third or 
fourth year. To account for this, Preyer observed, much to the 
point, that our earliest childish experiences are very different from 
those of later years.^ What a child learns in his first year or so : to 
sit up, to walk, to speak, is a sort of self-contained course of train- 
ing ; when once he has passed through it, the road is opened to the 
wider experiences common to all adults. There is thus a want of 
continuity and harmony between the experiences of the earliest 
and those of later years, and as a rule therefore a want of interest 
in retaining those older events fresh in the memory. 

Other causes may, however, be pointed out as conducing to this 
result. The earliest sensuous percepts have as yet a chaotic and 
sporadic character, are but little arranged and organized, and a 
certain definiteness and order is a condition, as will presently be 
shown, of the retention of experiences in consciousness. In the 
consciousness of the little child, the " ascending " current pre- 
dominates, just as in dream-consciousness. And dreams are but 
seldom remembered. The cerebrum, with which the memory- 
activity is linked, plays generally but a small part during this 
period (see IV. 4). The impressions have a greater tendency 
to break out in reflex-movements, than to install themselves in 
memory. 

{c) Just as a fresh and healthy brain is essential to the collecting 
of material for memory, so is it also a condition of the reproduction 
of this material that there should be sufficient energy in the 
organism, especially in the brain. Sir Henry Holland, an English 
physician, while visiting the mines in the Harz mountains, suddenly 
forgot his German in consequence of over-fatigue, and it returned 
to him only after he was rested and refreshed. In happy moods, 
especially in strong excitement, memories rise up which cannot be 

1 Die Seele des Kindes, p. 226. (Eng. trans., vol. ii. p. 9.) 



I50 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

commanded under ordinary circumstances {cf. 6). The use of 
opium and similar drugs has sometimes the same effect. There must, 
Desides, in some way or other, be something in the organic state 
and in the prevailing mood corresponding to the state and mood 
which were present during the actual experience ; though in this 
connection contrast may sometimes be of great importance. 

Besides this, it is a question of what sensations press in upon 
us at the moment. The stronger the effect produced by these, the 
greater the difficulty with which the memory-images develop (see 2). 
The more closely they are related to the memory-images, the more 
will they interfere with the independent entrance of these. We 
may have memories of colours or sounds while touching an object, 
but hardly of red while experiencing blue^ or of sounds different 
from those which we hear at the time. 

{d) Not all that we experience is equally well suited to be 
remembered. The more simple and less complex it is, the more 
easily does it disappear. That which has many strongly marked 
and distinctive sides is better retained. On this account feelings 
and states of mind are, as we shall see in a later connection, 
remembered only through the ideas with which they are connected, 
and we recall the oscillations and transitions of feeling more easily 
than the feeling itself. The general sensations, the most obscure 
and inarticulate of our sensations, are thus not easily reproduced. 
We can remember the fact that under such and such circumstances 
we felt hungry or thirsty, but no memory-image is formed of the 
actual hunger or thirst. The higher senses, on the contrary, touch, 
hearing and sight, afford clear and distinct memory-images, and 
the world of memory, for those who can see, is certainly peopled 
chiefly by visual ideas. We remember relations better than the 
individual members of the relation, the form better than the 
content. Among forms again, those are best remembered which 
are most distinctly differentiated. Thus the space-relation is 
remembered better than the time-relation, and this better than the 
general relation of difference. Because of the ease with which it 
is retained, the space-relation is employed as the basis of so-called 
mnemonics, as a frame {memoria localis)^ which might contain and 
support all material for memory. 

8. {a) When we yield ourselves up to the flow of ideas, the 
emerging images seem to come " of themselves " just as much as 
sensations. We have at any rate the feeling that they are as little 
produced by us as immediate excitations. The one as the other 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 151 

must be accepted, as they are and as they come. Especially 
where there is a considerable contrast and difference between 
the emerging and the preceding ideas, is their appearance in- 
explicable. The effect then seems to bear no relation to the 
cause. If to this is added the suddenness with which ideas some- 
times make their appearance, it is little wonder that many, who in 
the physical world will admit no break in the series of cause and 
effect, nevertheless hold the mental world to be subject to no 
invariable laws. We have already seen (III.) that the world of 
consciousness is not a self-contained whole ; it becomes intelli- 
gible only on the assumption of an interaction between conscious 
and unconscious activity. Not all the conditions for the produc- 
tion of a mental state are given in the life of conscious ideation 
and feeling ; unconscious, inherited or acquired dispositions and 
instincts often play the most important part, and the observer 
learns to know them only through their effects. The laws of the 
interaction of conscious ideas are thus only clues, which may 
serve to guide us when we try to understand the changes among 
the phenomena of consciousness, empirical rules by means of 
which we arrange the chaos of our experiences. But so far as we 
are in a position to establish these rules by the closer examination 
of psychological phenomena, we find corroborated the assumption 
of a causal connection, with which the student of the inner as of 
the outer world may start. And in so far as a phenomenon can- 
not be satisfactorily explained by these laws, we merely conclude, 
either that there must be laws which we do not know, or that the 
connection is too complex to admit of reduction to simple points 
of view. 

{b) We have already, in what precedes, encountered the laws 
which govern the association of ideas. We have seen how a sen- 
sation fuses with the traces of earlier sensations {A with a), and how 
a firm and repeated combination of sensations {A^ B, C, D) brings 
about also a firm combination of the corresponding representations 
(a, b^ c, d), so namely, that when one of these is recalled it has a 
tendency to bring the others after it. In the grozuth of sensuous 
perception and in the freeing of ideas the same laws are at work as 
in the association of free ideals. The difference is this, that in the 
latter case, the individual members are known to us as independent 
elements of consciousness before the association takes place, while 
in the association between sensations and implicate ideas we know 
only the product. The complex character of sensuous perception 



152 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

is learned only by analysis. Associations of ideas may also be 
so firm and constant that it is forgotten out of what elements 
they have arisen. Some of the greatest mysteries in the province 
of psychology owe their origin to such deeply rooted associations 
of ideas, the beginning and history of which have been forgotten. 
The theory of indissoluble association is the most powerful weapon 
of the English school against the appeal to a priori and original 
forms of consciousness and ideas. This theory is founded on the 
just assumption, that that which presents itself to us as a unity and 
as necessarily coherent, may yet have arisen from the fusing of 
different elements. It demands therefore a deeper and more ex- 
tensive psychological analysis than the dogmatising psychology 
enters into. Such an analysis finds an especial application 
in associations which have not been formed in the actual con- 
sciousness of the individual, but are the bequest of earlier 
generations, whether by inherited organisation or by tradition 
and language. 

Given a certain idea (<^), it may occasion other ideas in two 
directions. It may either call up ideas similar in kind and content 
to itself (^2 (^z^\' ' •)? or ideas, the objects of which usually appear 
in conjunction with its object {a^ b^ r, d corresponding to A^ B, 
C, D). The two principal rules are : the law of similarity and 
that of external connection (contact, contiguity). Things related 
by nature belong together, and things which make their appearance 
in conjunction belong together for consciousness. It will appear 
that between the two principal laws there is a transition-form, in 
which both meet. 



I. Association of Ideas by Similarity. 

(Psychological formula : a^ + a^. 

(i) The first relation to be mentioned under this head is that of 
sameness (psychological identity) or similarity of congruity.^ This 
is the relation which comes into effect in sensuous perception, when 
the sensation arouses an (implicate) idea and fuses with it. Here 
lies the starting-point of all the influence which a sensation can 

1 [In the articles already referred to, Prof. Hoffding distinguishes the three degrees of 
similarity as Deckungsahnlichkeit (similarity of congruity), Qualitatsahnlichkeit (similarity 
of quality), aiid Verhaltnissahnlichkeit (similarity of relations), and the terms are intro- 
duced in the text at his request. For a fuller explanation of them see Arts. 2 and 3 
iVierteljahrssthrift, xiv. (1890) i, 2). (Tr.)] 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 153 

exercise in consciousness. For whatever states and farther effects 
it may be able to call up afterwards, the first condition is that 
there shall be an instinctive recognition, in other words that the 
sensation shall have a point of attachment in consciousness. This 
point (^2) then forms the starting-point of further operations. — 
There may be recognition, as already mentioned, in the case not 
only of a sensation which is repeated, but also of a free idea which 
is repeated. In the first case A and a^^ intermingle, in the latter 
a and a^ (denoting as above sensations by capital, and ideas by 
small, letters). 

(2) The next simplest association by similarity consists in recog- 
nition leading to the idea of an earlier experience of the same kind. 
When I have recognized a man, the image of him as he was when 
last I saw him (similarity of quality) naturally comes to my mind. 
The apple that is on the table in front of me, excites in my idea the 
picture of the fateful apple on the tree of knowledge (as represented 
in an old engraving). " A big ball of wool reminds me of my first 
lesson in physical geography : a ball was made to revolve on a 
knitting needle, and moved round a stationary object in the middle 
of the table." ^ The portrait of a person suggests to me the person 
himself. A step further removed is the idea of people like the one 
actually seen, i.e, of persons who resemble him in feature (as when 
Lady Macbeth is kept from murdering the old king, because he is 
like her father), or in character and fate (as when Napoleon reminds 
me of Alexander and Caesar, or the Bourbons of the Stuarts). 

(3) The examples last quoted lead us naturally to more remote 
relations of similarity, to analogies^ parallels, 7netaphors^ and alle- 
gories, which play a great part especially in the primitive stages of 
consciousness (similarity of relations). We have already observed, 
that all expressions for mental phenomena are borrowed from analo- 
gous material experiences (see I. 3). There is, according to Max 
Miiller, a period in the development of the race which may be styled 
the mythological, because " all the thoughts which went beyond the 
narrow horizon of our everyday life had to be expressed by meta- 
phors, and these metaphors had not yet become what they are to 
us, mere conventional and traditional expressions, but . . . were felt 
and understood half in their original half in their modified 
character." From roots which signify " gleam, glitter," are formed 
in this way appellations for the sun, the moon, the stars, the human 
eye, gold, silver, play, joy, happiness, and love. Max Miiller 

^ Example taken from an interesting collection of associations of ideas kindly sent tome. 



154 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

distinguishes between radical and poetical metaphors. It is a 
radical metaphor, when a series of words with definite meanings 
are developed from a root with a somewhat indefinite meaning, 
each word having its special analogy with the original vague 
meaning, as when, e.g. a root which denotes " to shine ^' is made use 
of to form expressions not only for the sun and fire, but also for the 
spring, the morning light, the clearness of thought, and the hymn 
of praise. Poetical metaphor arises from a word with a definite 
meaning being borrowed to denote other objects, as when the rays 
of the sun are called the hands and fingers of the sun, the rain-clouds 
cows with full udders, the lightning an arrow or a serpent.^ — Even 
at the present day, the poet finds in this way a connection, where 
the prosaic eye is blind. In the control of rhythm over dancers, 
he sees, e.g. the symbol of the law of the universe, to which the 
heavenly bodies are obedient. (Schiller : Der Tanz.) — In noting 
down a series of associations of ideas out of my own experience, I 
have been surprised to find how quickly a metaphorical meaning 
creeps in, even where the similarity is not quite obvious {e.g. with 
the words swell, mist, gild). 



11. Association of Ideas by the Relation betwee7i the Whole and 

the Parts. 

(Psychological formula : a^ -\- \a^^ -\' b -\- ^]). 

The transition between association by similarity and association 
by contiguity is made through those cases where an idea, which 
has been called up by another idea or sensation by way of similarity, 
brings with it a group of further ideas with which it is conjoined.^ — 
When the sight of the fire (A) arouses the idea of a smithy, the con- 
necting link is the smithy fire {a^^ but the images of the other objects 
in the smithy {b + c) emerge with it. — Mad King Lear tries to 
comfort the blind Gloucester in his misfortunes ; comfort suggests 
to him a sermon, in which, after the manner of the Puritans, the 
preacher holds his hat in his hand ; from the felt of the hat he 
is led to think of a possible stratagem of war : to shoe the horses 

1 Max Miiller, Lectures on the Science of Language, 2nd ed. (1885) ii. pp. 388-390. ^ 

2 Wundt places this relation under the head of association through external connection, 
{Physiol. Psychol.), ii. p. 300 [3rd ed. ii. p. 376] ; Sibbern under association by similarity 
{Psychologic^ 1856), p. 230 ; it is with most reason regarded as a transition form. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 155 

with felt, so as to come upon the enemy noiselessly.^ He is thus 
led by subordinate features to construct one scene after another. — 
In complete derangement {de?ne?tce), where the entire circle of 
ideas is on the verge of dissolution, association is determined 
purely by similarity in the sound of the words {assonance) ; ^ 
similarity of sound may bring with it all the ideas associated with 
the word. Even in normal states the sound of each word arouses 
certain associations.^ 

When ideas of qualities or actions give rise to ideas of things or 
persons, there is similarly an association between part and whole : 
a whole group of ideas is constructed through the calling up by 
similarity of one of the group. When the idea of the cause arouses 
the idea of the effect, the procedure is the same. We construct the 
whole connection, of which both cause and effect are inembers. 
From the idea of the movements of the planets we are led to the 
idea of gravity, because we picture the planets as members of the 
solar system. The like is true of the association between the idea 
of the end and that of the means. 



III. Associaiion of Ideas by External Co?inectio7z {Co?ttiguity), 

(Psychological formula \ a -\- b). 

Sensations which always appear together, give rise also to con- 
joined ideas. It is in this way that the idea of an individual object 
is formed. Certain visual ideas (yellow colour), ideas of smell, ideas 
of touch (smoothness), and ideas of taste are associated to form 
one idea (of an apple). Those things which in respect of space and 
time appeared together in our experience, will in general be repre- 
sented together in our thought, even if not formed into a self- 
contained whole. The idea of a man leads naturally to the idea of 

1 " Thou must be patient ; we came crying hither. 
Thou know'st, the first time that we smell the air, 
We wawl and cry ; I will preach to thee . . . mark. 

. This is a good block ! — 

It were a delicate stratagem, to shoe 
A troop of horse with felt. I'll put it in proof; 
And when I have stolen upon these sons-in-law, 
Then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill." 

King Lear, Act IV. Sc. 7. 

2 Griesinger, Pathol, nnd Therapie der Psych. Kra^tkhciten, 2nd ed., p. 374. 

3 Tegne'r, Sprakets makt ofver Tanken (" Speech often Determines Thought "), Stock- 
holm, 1880, p. 25, seq. 



156 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

his house, his friends, etc., the idea of a gambler to that of a 
green table, the idea of a wreck to that of a coast, etc. There 
is, besides, a natural association between an event and the time 
and place of its occurrence. 

An important instance of association by external connection is 
that between the thing and the sign for the thing. An emotion and 
its external expression are naturally associated in idea. If, e.g,^ the 
word " terror " is looked up in a dictionary, the imagination pictures 
involuntarily the image of a startled movement, of growing pale 
and so forth. The Greek word for flight {(j^olBos) acquired later the 
meaning of fear. Language is a sign of this kind, originating 
partly as involuntary outburst at the sight of an impressive 
phenomenon or of one affecting the weal and woe of the individual, 
partly from involuntary imitation of sounds emitted by phenomena 
(thunder, splashing, ringing, cries of animals, etc.), but afterwards 
employed by individuals as a means of mutual understanding. 
" Just as the subject was himself disposed, in his poverty of ideas 
and of self-determined forms of expression, to have recourse with 
the same idea to the same expression (the same sound), so too the 
sound became familiar to others by being repeated as a response, and 
by that instinct of imitation which is in operation just at this stage 
of life and before the sound has as yet acquired a hard and fast 
meaning ; in this way a link common to several persons was at once 
formed between this sound and the idea in the mind . . . the means of 
sharing and understanding the idea was formed.^' ^ Why it should 
be sound that is the universal sign for all sensations and feelings, 
may be explained perhaps by the fact that it commands the greatest 
wealth of shades for the expression of the feelings. Even in the 
animal kingdom, a cry is at once the involuntary result of anything 
that makes a strong impression on the individual, and a signal for 
other individuals. The cry of pain serves as warning, and enticing 
sounds attract the sexes. According to Darwin, the habit of 
uttering musical sounds was developed in the progenitors of man 
during courtship, and was thus associated with the most powerful 
emotions : ardent love, rivalry, and triumph. This faculty must 
have arisen, therefore, before the faculty of articulate speech.^ The 
several sensations have this in common, that they all, in their dif- 
ferent ways, influence feeling ; it is consequently not surprising that 
they are all ultimately translated into the language of feeling. 

1 Madvig, 077Z Sprogets Vdsen, Udvikling og Liv ("On the Nature, Development, 
and Life of Language"), {University Program), Copenhagen, 1842, p. 9, seq. 

2 The Expression of the Emotions^ London, 1872, p. 27 [2nd ed. (1890) p. 92]. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 157 

{c.) It is the first and third of these laws of association that have 
chiefly attracted attention. And attempts have been made to simplify 
the matter yet farther by the rejection of one of the two, or by the 
reduction of both to a single law. For a long time the dominant 
tendency of English psychologists was to regard the law of con- 
tiguity as fundamental, and to explain all union within consciousness 
by habitual union in space and time. This was the case even with 
Thomas Hobbes, the founder of English psychology {Human 
Nature^ 1640), and later, with e,g.^ James Mill.^ This is the principle 
of the extreme " associationist psychology,^^ ^ which conceives of 
consciousness as a series or bundle of sensations and ideas, and 
can in consequence admit no other associations than such as 
rest upon external contact. Association by similarity thus becomes 
only a special case of association by external connection, accounted 
for by the fact that similar and allied experiences, from the 
nature of the circumstances, frequently occur simultaneously or 
in immediate succession. The artificiality of this notion is 
obvious. It is contrary, moreover, to the experience, that it is often 
the relation of similarity which causes us to bring together objects 
remote in time and space. Caesar, Alexander, and Napoleon, are 
indeed often presented together in our thought ; but this is so just 
because they have been so often compared with one another. The 
steps of a mathematical proof easily follow in our memory, but 
only after thought has united them. 

So far from association by similarity being resolvable into associa- 
tion by contiguity, every association by contiguity on the contrary 
presupposes an association by similarity, or at the least an im- 
mediate recognition. In order that A may excite the ideas of B^ C, D, 
with which it usually arises simultaneously in consciousness, it must 
first, so to speak, establish its identity. Thus A must give rise to a, 
and only then will a bring with it b, c^ and d. The relation of simi- 
larity is thus the innermost germ of all association of ideas ; the 
external connection can take effect only on presupposition of the in- 
ternal. When the apple on the table before me carries my thoughts 
to Adam and Eve, this is because first — perhaps so quickly that I do 
not remember or am hardly conscious of it — I have thought of the 
apple on the tree of knowledge. The association by similarity, 
lying at the root of the association by contiguity, may easily escape 

1 \_Analysis of the Human Mind, i. p. iit. (Tr.)] 

2 The expression "association of ideas" was introduced by Locke, who indicated by 
it, however, only certain individual peculiarities, and did not, like Hobbes and the later 
school, make the " association of ideas" the one governing psychological principle. 



158 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

our attention. As we may have after-images of sensations which 
we have not noticed (see IIL 6), so a series of ideas may be 
aroused without our observing that they are hnked to an earher 
idea through association by similarity. Once, while taking a walk, 
I was surprised by the vivid memory-image of a Swiss mountain 
view, and on closer reflection found that it must have been called up 
by the sight of heavy banks of clouds in the horizon ; the resem- 
blance of the clouds to the mountains had— while I was thinking of 
something quite different — aroused a whole series of associations, 
which at last drew my full attention. Such an association by 
similarity may, like recognition, be effected so easily and quickly 
(especially when what is identified is well known, and has no 
special interest), that it scarcely rises above the threshold of con- 
sciousness. But it is a link which cannot be dispensed with, how- 
ever much it may vanish into the unconscious. — Here reference may 
again be made to the fact that the " psychical relation '' of a stimulus 
— i.e. its interest for, and connection with, the consciousness of a 
sleeper — is able to rouse from sleep ; this is another case in which 
we stand at a transition stage between the conscious and the 
unconscious (see IIL 9). 

The fact that the relation of similarity lies at the root of associa- 
tion by contiguity, does not deprive this latter of its independent 
weight. Mere recognition and identification would carry the life 
of ideas no farther. Through association by contiguity an abun- 
dant material is appropriated and preserved in consciousness ; the 
material taken in is then gradually arranged according to the 
principle of similarity. In every association of ideas two laws are 
at work : a centrifugal and a centripetal tendency. The two 
make their appearance in different degrees according to the nature 
and gifts of the individuals. Some strive to accumulate a large and 
varied material of ideas and percepts : the aim of others on the 
contrary is to arrive at as many simple and clear points of view as 
possible, for which reason they concentrate their interest on the 
general and typical. Historical research and scientific specialization 
exemplify the one direction ; mathematical and philosophical study 
the other. Only the artistic genius is in a position to bring into 
unity the special and the typical. 

There is however a psychological point of view, from which the 
two laws may be brought under one and the same fundamental law.^ 

1 Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernimft, Kehrbach's, ed. p. ii6, j^^. 125.; Fries, Neue 
Kritik, I, p. 114, seg. ; William Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics^ ii. p. 233. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 159 

For however many different sensations and ideas may come 
simultaneously, or in immediate succession, into our consciousness^ 
they neither are nor remain quite separate. They are all embraced 
by one and the same consciousness, through whose activity they 
have arisen. The manner in which they act upon one another and 
are combined, is determined by the form and direction taken by 
the synthetic activity of consciousness at the given moment. On 
the other hand, they react, each one of them, upon the general 
condition of consciousness. Now when one of these sensations 
or ideas is renewed and brings the others with it, what really 
operates is the tendency to reawaken the general state, or the 
general activity, to which all these ideas belonged. The innermost 
basis of all association of ideas should thus be looked for in the 
unity which is present in every mental state and every mental 
activity, and which stamps all simple elements with a common 
characteristic. From this point of view the association between 
the parts and the whole would be the typical form of all associa- 
tion. This fundamental law of all association of ideas might be 
called the lazv of totality. 

From this point of view association by similarity and association 
by contiguity do not figure as two special and mutually ex- 
clusive forms, but merge one into the other, since it has been 
shown above that there is an intermediate form related to 
both, — a form which now appears as the type of all association. 
For starting from the formula a^ +('^2 + ^ + ^)7 ^^ ^^Y easily be 
shov/n that association by similarity and by contiguity are only 
extreme cases of the law expressed in this formula. Thus when 
b and c decrease in strength and distinctness until lost in indefinite- 
ness, we are left with the formula of association by similarity : 
(^1 + ^2)? as the extreme case. — And again in another way, associa- 
tion by totality may be reduced to association by similarity. The 
more the idea of the common elements {a^ and a^ preponderates, 
the stronger will the differences seem between the other elements 
(through such effects of contrast as are quoted in pp. 122, 123).^ The 
totality is thus divided as it were into two parts {a^ and b + ^), and 

1 Cf. with the above the interesting observation of Stumpf, TonpsycJiologie, i, p. 114. — 
"The similarity seems to us to be most distinct, when the whole is apprehended as a 
whole. The more we direct our attention to the resembling parts, the more we lose the 
impression of the similarity of the whole. I observe the likeness in two faces, inquire 
into the reason and find that the eyes are alike. So soon as I observe this, the difference 
of the other features attracts attention, even more than the likeness of that feature, and 
the likeness of the whole as such seems almost to disappear. In the .same way, when 
two sounds possess the same partial tones, the similarity of the sounds is more evident to 
me the less I pick out these common tones." 



i6o OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

an association is effected with the former only. — But when on 
the other hand, a^ is recognized and merged with ever greater 
rapidity and inattention, we arrive at the formula of associa- 
tion by contiguity {a + b). — In our experience it is scarcely 
possible to point to a case where similarity and contiguity are 
not both at work. The law of totality is thus properly the law of 
association. 

But we must go a step farther. For what lends its special 
character to every mental state, and at the same time forms the 
constant common element (<^), is chiefly the mood which prevails 
in it, which determines and is determined by it. As with the 
immediate sensations, so too in the flow of ideas, the interest, 
and the attention determined by the interest, play an essential part. 
We are never wholly passive in associations of ideas, any more 
than in our sensations (pp. 108-112). The combination among 
our ideas is consequently in each moment conditioned, not only by 
relations of similarity and contiguity, but also by the prevailing 
feeling. We have an approximation to the pure, absolute validity 
of the above laws, only in instances where the mood is neutral, 
or rather where it is so concerned in a certain direction as to 
make it its actual object that the ideas should arrange themselves 
according to their relation and their connection. To begin with, 
definite practical ends and interests weigh down the scale in favour 
of definite sets of ideas. Thus a sort of choice among possible ideas 
takes place, and here opportunities are afforded to many unconscious 
influences, which make themselves felt even when we think we are 
following, and not directing, the current of our thought. From 
interest we are brought back to impulse, instinct, and temperament, 
hidden sources which are often only recognized from their effects. 
The union between feeling and idea lies deeper than that between 
the ideas themselves. If all mental connections depended on the 
actual experiences of the individual and on their combination 
according to the laws of association of ideas, the consciousness of 
each individual would be much more clear and penetrable than 
it actually is. — This is not to be understood as implying that 
mere want of intelligible connection is to be attributed to the in- 
fluence of feeling. Feeling can on the contrary give rise to firmer 
connections than there would otherwise be. The strongest feeling 
is that with which men embrace their ideal or practical aims ; 
this feeling leads to search for the means to realize the aims, and 
so lays the foundation of a firm connection between a whole set 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION i6t 

of ideas.^ This leads us to the consideration of the real unity of 
consciousness (V. B. 5) and its importance for the continuance and 
healthiness of mental life. 

The closer investigation into the influence of feeling and will on 
cognition must, however, be postponed to the following chapters 
(VI. F. and VII. B. 2). Here it shall merely be added, that though 
association by contrast has sometimes been postulated as a special 
form of association of ideas, the phenomena which come under that 
head may find a natural explanation through the influence of feeling, 
in so far as they are not to be explained quite simply by the laws of 
similarity or of contiguity. It is characteristic of the life of feeling, 
to move in opposites ; from first to last it is determined by the great 
contrast between pleasure and pain, and we find in it far stronger 
effects of contrast than among sensations. After great tension 
in one direction there commonly succeeds a relaxation, if not 
a tendency to turn the interest in the contrary direction, just as 
the eye when fatigued with one colour seeks the contrasting colour. 
This would explain the necessity of passing from the idea of light 
to that of darkness, and from the idea of great to that of small. 
But it is not necessary in all cases to revert to the bent that feeling 
has for contrasting states ; the explanation is often contained in a 
relation of similarity or of contiguity.^ Contrasts often belong to 
the same general conception, just as two poles which are re- 
moved each in its own direction from a common centre. Dwarf 
and giant both deviate from the ordinary medium height. And 
moreover it chances in the natural course of life, that opposites 
succeed, depend upon and pass into, one another ; as day succeeds 
night ; and joy, sorrow. So that here external connection may 
give rise to the association. 

(d.) Even if it cannot be admitted that those psychologists are 
right, who regard obliviscence as the difficulty to be explained, and 

1 Hobbes had already drawn attention to the attaching and arranging power which 
the thought of an aim exercises in the association of ideas {^Huvian Nature, Chap, 4; 
Leviathan, Chap. 3). In later times William Hamilton laid down the law of interest, 
as supplementary to the law of similarity and contiguity. — {Cf. Mansel, Metaphysics, 
Edinburgh, 1875, p. 241, seq.'). In Wundt's theory of apperception (concentration of 
consciousness) as act of will {Physiol. Psychol, ii. p. 205, seq. [3rd ed. ii. p. 235, seq.}) 
the law of interest is ingeniously combined with the notion of apperception as propounded 
by Leibniz and Kant. Wundt appears to draw too sharp a distinction between association 
and apperception, between active and passive connection of ideas. No association, 
whatever it may be, takes place quite passively, just as generally, in every department of 
mental life, it proves impossible to draw a sharp line between passivity and activity. — 
In Fries {Neue Kritik der Vernunft. — Psychische Anthropologic) are to be found sound 
and interesting observations on this point. 

2 Cf. James Mill, Analysis of the P henomena of the Human Mind, 2nd ed., London, 
1869, I, p. 113, seq. 

M 



i62 Outlines of psychology [v 

reminiscence as a matter of course, it cannot on the other hand be 
maintained that ideas are forgotten " of themselves/^ It may be 
as great an art to forget as to remember, whence the reply of 
Themistocles when Simonides offered to teach him the art of 
memory, that he would rather learn to forget : " for I remember 
even that which I do not wish to remember ; but cannot forget what 
I wish to forget.^' What is indifferent or of little importance dis- 
appears as of itself ; but the painful ideas are the very ones which, 
as a rule, are associated with such impressive experiences and cir- 
cumstances, that the involuntary flow of ideas does not carry them 
away. Moreover, there may even be in the nature of the individual 
a tendency to cling with a certain obstinacy to painful ideas. Under 
other circumstances, the problem may be of course to forget ideas 
which are associated with pleasure. Here will only be noted 
briefly the various ways and means by which an idea may be 
more or less completely expelled from consciousness. These will 
be the laws of obliviscence as opposed to those of reminiscence. 

(i) It is not of course possible to oppose an idea quite directly. 
The art of forgetting (or as it has also been called, of abstracting) 
can only consist in the suppression of certain ideas by means of 
others. One who wishes to forget must look for powerful and great 
series of ideas, in which his thought may be fully occupied. The 
nature of what he seeks (pleasures or penances, work or fancy) will 
depend on his character and on the mental resources at his dis- 
posal. — The capacity for self-education depends in great measure 
on the power of exercising the art of obliviscence. Fortunately, 
as will appear, nature comes to the help of the art. 

(2) In many cases an idea is associated from the first with 
another idea of such strength and importance as gradually to 
obscure or suppress it. If something is pointed out to a little 
child with the hand and the hand then taken away, the eyes 
of the child usually follow the hand instead of being fixed on the 
object. But if this object attracts the attention for any reason, the 
child no longer troubles himself as to what has become of the hand. 
This is the history of all true education (see III. 4) ; authority 
leads the pupil to a truth, which ultimately acquires independent 
vahdity and weight, and the original authority is forgotten, just as 
the scaffolding is removed when the house is finished. If the 
house can be built without the use of scaffolding, of course so 
much the better. Both the science of education and so-called 
"mnemonics'^ have often laid too much stress upon the use of 



v] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 163 

means which it may afterwards be difficult to drive out of con- 
sciousness. 

(5) In other cases the first idea does not disappear completely, 
but becomes a subordinate element in the one it has aroused. In 
reading-, the letters call up a host of ideas and feelings, but for all 
that the signs themselves do not wholly vanish from consciousness. 
In metaphorical and symbolical descriptions, the original meaning 
often remains obscurely in the background. When, for example, 
the fire of inspiration is spoken of, there is still, to those not much 
accustomed to rhetoric, a glimmer from the notion of actual fire. 

(4) An idea, then, may be suppressed either by an idea quite 
foreign to it, voluntarily aroused from another region of conscious- 
ness {a <^ x)j or by an idea which it itself occasions {a <^ b), or it 

may become a subordinate element in the victorious idea ( ). But 

there remains a fourth possibility. It may preserve its indepen- 
dence as against the other idea to which it is attached, and yet 
be so closely combined with it that a new idea arises, which is 
determined by both of the former, although neither is to be dis- 
tinguished in it. The formula for this would be ab — c. Here a 
sort of psychical chemistry^ is exhibited: in chemical composi- 
tion the product has quite different properties from the substances 
of which it is composed. The history of compound words affords 
examples. The word " meat-broth " scarcely calls up the two ideas 
" meat " and " broth ^' as distinct in consciousness ; but it was 
originally formed to distinguish this kind of broth from any other- 
— Human speech seems to have passed through three stages of 
development. At the most primitive, every word is a root and 
every root a word. This stage, at which every root has preserved 
its independence, Max Miiller calls the radical; we have an example 
of it in ancient Chinese. At the next stage two roots coalesce to 
form a word ; one of the two has then usually the chief weight, 
and the other becomes a mere ending, for which reason this is 
usually called the terminatio7ial stage.^ Here the two constituents of 
the word still seem to excite their own independent ideas, even when 
the original meaning of the termination is lost. On the other hand, 
at the third stage, which is represented by the Aryan and Semitic 
languages and called the iiiflexional stage, the roots may be so welded 

1 Hartley, in his Observations of Alan, was the first to call attention to this 
phenomenon. It is a special case of " indissoluble association." 

2 [Max Miiller cites the Turanian family of speech, which is however no longer recog= 
nized by philologists as a distinct family. (Tn at author's request.)] 

M 2 



164 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

together that only the educated are able to separate them.^ — The 
idea of distance seems to us simple and immediate, and yet (as will 
appear in the next section) it is undoubtedly the product of 
sensations which no longer take effect independently. — The same 
holds good of every conception of a totality, which has been reached 
through the laborious working up of details ; the totality stands out 
as the object of immediate intuition, of an " intuitive knowledge," 
from which all discursive elements and processes have vanished. 
Here custom co-operates ; the oftener we have gone through the 
details, the more completely and easily can the totality come 
instantaneously before us. Successive apprehension precedes 
simultaneous {cf. p. 114, seq^. 

Such a transformation may be effected more or less mechanically. 
The expression in words may precede and induce the thought, as 
in the development of language seems to have been the case in the 
transition from termination to inflexion. But there may be an inter- 
mingling of the actual ideas mainly conditioned by the impulse 
— grounded in the nature of consciousness — to unity and close' 
combination among the conscious elements. 

9. The idea in its simplest form is a reproduced sensation. As 
such it is uncompounded, in the sense in which a sensation is uncom- 
pounded (pp. 102-106), and may be called simple idea. Out of 
such simple ideas are formed, through association by contiguity 
(V. B. Z b.WV)^ complex ideas, which correspond to the complex 
percepts ; they concern objects, persons, relations and events, and 
may be called individual ideas. In these, the simple sensations 
are united into ideas of individual totalities. The connection 
between the simple ideas, of which the individual idea is composed, 
may be so firm and close, that we are disposed to regard this latter 
as corresponding to a certain mystical unity in the objective world, 
namely, to what we call the "thing itself" as distinct from its 
qualities. 

These individual ideas are, however, by no means firm and in- 
variable. Their elements may change, and often they are in one 
moment something different from what they were in the preceding. 
My idea of the table, at which I am seated, is formed by a com- 
bination of various simple ideas (a certain colour, and certain degree 
of hardness, form, position, etc.). But every single time that I 
have seen the table, I have seen it in a different way : point of 
view, light, position have not been exactly the same on any two 

1 M. Miiller, Lectures on Langna^e^ i, pp. 331, 336, 370. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 165 

occasions ; now the one, now tlie other element (now colour and 
hardness, now form and position) has, from the special circum- 
stances, attracted my attention. If, however, I say I have an idea 
of the table, and if I recognize the talkie by means of it, it 
seems that my idea, if it is to apply to every experience I have 
had of the table, can contain only certain general points or features, 
which recur every time that the table is before me. We can have 
a really individual image of an object or of a circumstance, only if 
we have experienced it merely one single time. If there have been 
more experiences, the differences will make themselves more or less 
felt ; we picture our home, e.g. now in one, now in another setting, 
and a certain conflict may arise among the elements as to which 
shall have the decisive influence upon the character of the idea, 
and this so much the more, the richer and more varied our 
experiences. 

As it is not in our power to retain one and the same memory- 
image for any length of time (for which reason also, what we call 
dwelling upon an idea is in reality a constant letting go and repro- 
ducing of the image), so the same individual idea has a tendency, 
every time that it re-emcrgcs, to change of form. The ele- 
ments preponderating in the one moment will, by force of the 
law of contrast, give place to others which have greater freshness. 
The question is then, Have we really ideas of individual objects 
and circumstances, which are more than mere repetitions of 
the several experiences and percepts ? Have we general or 
typical ideas, which apply to all the single percepts experienced 
by us ? 

The difficulty of the question consists in this, that every complete 
representation of an object must give it to us with all its traits and 
qualities. Our ideas always tend to become complete and individual, 
and so much the more, the more vivid they are and the more the 
attention is directed to them. Since, however, the individual traits 
and qualities vary with each experience — for an absolute repetition 
never occurs, but there are always differences in degrees and sur- 
roundings — I have consequently not one individual idea of an object, 
but many. We may therefore distinguish between a concrete 
individual idea (of the table in this light, from this side and so 
forth), and a typical individual idea (of this table as opposed to 
other tables). Now in what sense do we have typical individual 
ideas ? 

The psychological difficulty involved was faced long ago. It 



i66 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

was not, however, the individual, but the general ideas which drew 
attention to the difficulty. It was not observed that our ideas of 
single objects and circumstances, which have been presented more 
than once in our experience, are abstract ideas quite as much as 
general ideas proper. My idea of a table in general bears the 
same relation to the different tables which I have seen, as my idea 
of this particular table to my different experiences of this table. 
The general idea arises out of a continuation of the same process, 
by which the typical individual idea is formed. As the concrete 
individual ideas struggle for the decisive control of the typical 
individual idea, so the different individual ideas struggle for the 
decisive control of the general idea. When I try to picture to 
myself a triangle, I think now of an isosceles, now of an equi- 
lateral triangle and so forth. The common features do not suffice 
to constitute an actual image. Just as we cannot eat fruit in the 
abstract, but eat only apples or pears, etc., so we cannot picture 
fruit in the abstract. But, then, have we, psychologically, really 
general ideas 1 

Berkeley first called attention forcibly to this psychological 
difficulty (in the introduction to his Principles of Human Know- 
ledge). The ordinary theory of abstraction postulates, without 
more ado, a capacity of " drawing out ^' general qualities and laws, 
and of forming, out of these, new " abstract " ideas. Berkeley 
denied altogether that he had such ideas, although by other 
philosophers, such as Locke, eg.^ the power of forming them was 
given as one of the chief features which distinguished men from 
animals. " It is impossible for me," says Berkeley, " to form the 
abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving, and which 
is neither swift nor slow, curvilinear nor rectilinear ; and the like 
may be said of all other abstract general ideas whatsoever." 
Every idea has reference to something quite individual and 
particular. There are typical or general ideas, only in the sense 
that we can make a concrete individual idea serve as an example 
or representative of a whole series of individual ideas. The 
generality of an idea will, then, mean nothing more than its fitness 
to be employed as example or representative. 

Berkeley has here undoubtedly laid his finger on the crucial 
point. But it still remains to be asked. What is the psychological 
process by which an idea comes thus to be set up as repre- 
sentative '^. 

III the formation of the idea of a particular object (the concrete 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 167 

individual idea) the law of contiguity operates ; in the formation 
of the typical individual idea and of the general idea, the law of 
similarity. The several experiences and the several individuals 
have in common certain universal elements, which come into con- 
trast with the elements peculiar to each experience, to each indi- 
vidual. Supposing A = ax, B — bx, C = ex, to be three experiences, 
then, according to the law of similarity, the special idea x will be 
something more in consciousness than a, d, and c. The light of 
recognition will fall on it more clearly, x will form a clear and 
constant nucleus round which a, b, and c will move as obscurer, 
looser elements. The error of the old abstraction theory lay in 
supposing that x could be detached and represented in isolation. 
X (one or more special properties) is not enough to give us an 
individual idea, but must be represented in conjunction with a, or 
with b, or with c ; which of these possibilities makes its appearance, 
will depend on the special circumstances. 

It might seem as though the simplest psychological explanation 
of this matter were that which makes the interaction of the ideas 
themselves the determining force. Repetition, from the nature of 
the case, brings x much more frequently than a, b, or c, and x 
acquires in consequence greater strength and constancy, while 
a, b, and c, on the contrary, check and obscure one another. The 
common elements keep above the threshold of consciousness, while 
the stmggle of the other elements takes place at the threshold. In 
this way the individual traits would be worn away and only the 
general retained. This account would bring us back, however, to 
the eld abstraction theory. The process must end in only the 
common elements being left, and this is contrary to the individual 
character of all distinct ideas. Let us think, e.g., of the horse, the 
sheep, and other ungulata. The common property (x) is given in 
the definition of ungulata ; " mammalia having the incisors and 
canines often absent in one or both jaws, — molars all similar, when 
present, — toes large, covered with hoofs." In attempting to form 
an idea answering to this definition, we have first to make a choice 
as to the number of incisors and canines absent and in which jaw 
or whether in both, the presence or absence of molars, and the nature 
of the hoof, and then to supplement the properties given with 
others, belonging either to the horse, the sheep, or some other 
special kind of ungulata.^ 

1 [The definition of ungulata is substituted for that of pachydermata at Prof Hoffding's 
request, the latter being no longer recognized as a special order. (Tr,)] 



i68 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

The individual ideas might be thought of as merged into a 
generic idea {ax^ bx, and ex, yielding ^;r), as it is possible to have 
generic photographs of members of the same family or class.^ 
But even if it were possible to have such " cumulative ideas," 
they would have to be limited to cases where the differences are not 
too great. The merging of related ideas is therefore at any rate 
confined within narrow limits. 

The theory of generic ideas, as well as the old abstraction theory, 
presupposes that the reciprocal interaction of ideas is the deter- 
mining force in the formation of typical and general ideas. But it 
has already been shown (V. B., 8 ^), that we cannot carry through 
the doctrine of the association of ideas, without taking into con- 
sideration the other sides of mental life. 

We are indeed often so passive, that the involuntary play of 
ideas seems entirely to prevail. Many dim, vague, and casual 
general ideas are undoubtedly formed by purely mechanical 
fusion. But for the most part we have a personal interest in the 
course which the ideas take. We have a definite practical end, and 
seek the means to it, or a definite theoretical problem, and seek its 
solution. Our attention is consequently concentrated round the 
elements which point in the desired direction, and will address itself 
to the other elements no more than is necessary to apprehend 
the ideational image. And concentration will bring to the 
fore those particular elements, as attention in general brings to 
the fore our sensations and memories. This will be not least 
the case where the points of similarity are held fast in spite of 
strong differences, a^ b, and c all try to divert the attention to 
themselves, and it is only when the end and the motive determining 
the movement of thought are sufficiently strong, that the interfering 
associations of ideas are kept at a distance. In the idea ax^ we 
thus note principally the x. We may demonstrate the general 
properties of the triangle by means of any triangle we like, because 
we can avoid taking into account the special properties of the 
triangle described (whether it is right or obtuse-angled, etc.). 
General and typical ideas exist therefore in the sense that we are 
able to concentrate the attention on certain elements of the 
individual idea, so that a weaker light falls on the other elements. 

It would, however, be an error (an error in which Berkeley par- 
tially involved himself in his zealous and important dispute with 
the ancient theory of abstraction), were it to be supposed that we 

1 Galton, Inquiries into Hu7nan Faculty^ p. 349, seg. {cf. 12, seq. 183, seq.). 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 169 

begin with special ideas, then form concrete individual ideas, after- 
wards typical individual and finally general ideas. It is in fact a 
great art, and presupposes much practice, to know how to appre- 
hend the concrete and individual, and mental development must 
be measured no less by its progress in this respect than by the 
power of concentrating the attention on the typical and general. 
Distinctness and individuality are relative conceptions, and our 
ideas may in this respect pass through a whole scale. The ideas of 
children and of primitive men have often a certain abstract, vague, 
and general character, because they do not distinctly apprehend 
and hold fast the individual shades and differences. At the first, 
only particular sides of the object are apprehended and preserved ; 
it is connected with this, that the primitive consciousness, which 
in its sanguine nature has a tendency to attribute reality to all its 
ideas, suffers so many disappointments, since it argues from agree- 
ment in one particular to complete identity (V. ^.4). A child, e,g,^ 
calls every man father. Many of the happy hits and good sayings 
of children are connected with the abstract and one-sided character 
of their ideas. In primitive zoology the walrus is classed with fish, 
the bat with birds. The Indian calls iron "black stone,'' and 
copper " red stone." The Bushman calls the carriage of the 
European traveller "the big animal of the white man."' Our 
provisional ideas of a thing in like manner have, as a rule, a 
vague character, are given only in the most general outlines. 
In this connection have been cited with justice the ideas we 
have of things or circumstances about which we are asking or 
which we are trying to find, and in particular the ideas that 
express tendencies, the general bent of which is determined, but 
not the special form of the thing aimed at.^ In agreement with 
this is a fact noted by Leibniz, that primitive roots in language 
have an indefinite and general meaning, which is only gradually 
rendered precise and special.^ 

The strong and simple confidence in ideas once formed leads, 
however, to an over-rating of the differences as well as of the 
resemblances. A child, who had learned his letters, saw a book 
with Greek characters on the one side, Latin on the other. There- 
upon he exclaimed : " This is Greek, but these are letters." ^ He 



1 W. James in Mind, January 1884, p. 15. 

2 Leibniz, Opera Philosophica, Erdmann's edition, p. 297. Max Miiller, Lectures on 
the Science of Language (2nd ed.) i. pp. 425-445. 

^ Egger,! Observations et Reflexions stir le Dcveloppetnent de V Intelligence et du 
Langage chez les En/ants^ Paris, 1879, p. 22. 



lyo OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

could not enlarge his general idea of letters. Similarly, many- 
nations have regarded their own as the only real language ; the 
language of foreign nations appeared to them as murmuring or 
stammering, as the lisping of children, or the cries of animals. 
Barbarians, the Greek word for all who were not Hellenic, signified 
really persons who speak harshly and inarticulately. Correspond- 
ing words and ideas are to be found among the ancient Indians, 
Hebrews, and Arabians ; indeed even the people of the Herero (a 
Kaffir race in South Africa) consider that they alone speak, and all 
other nations stammer. It was only on closer acquaintance with 
the "barbarians" that the Greeks discovered, that (to quote 
Strabo's expression) the difference turned " not on a defect in the 
organ of speech, but on peculiarities in the language." ^ And 
similarly with the conception of " the State," which the Greeks 
would not apply to the associations of the barbarians. — The Greeks 
were more liberal in recognizing the divinities of other nations ; 
yet the first Christians were styled atheists {aBeoi), and in later 
times those whose conception of God has differed from the ordinary 
conception have often been stigmatized with the same name. — How 
many struggles with limited general ideas did it not cost, before it 
began to be recognized that the earth is a planet and the sun a 
fixed star ! — The development of the life of ideation consists, then, 
as much in generalization as in specialization, and in both respects 
great resistance may have to be overcome. 

lo. General ideas cannot be formed and retained in conscious- 
ness without the help of language. To the association by similarity 
of the homogeneous elements in percepts and ideas must be added, 
then, the association by contiguity between the idea and its symbol 
(8,^. III.). 

Even if language is from the first essentially a medium for the 
communication of formed ideas, and not for their formation and 
retention, and even if the combination of ideas may advance to 
a certain degree without the aid of language, there yet arrives a 
point in mental development where language is necessary to any 
further advance. 

In proof of the independence of the ideational processes, 
appeal might be made to the facts, — that children have ideas and 
think before they learn to speak, — that the power of speech is lost 
in certain pathological states without the reason being in any way 

1 L. Geiger, Ursprung tmd Entwickehmg der inenschlichen Sprache ^md Vernunft 
("Origin and Development of Human Speech and Reason"), i, p. 300, seq. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 171 

impaired, — and finally, that in certain languages expressions are 
wanting for ideas, which cannot themselves be unknown to the 
nations using those languages. 

But even if no speech can be ascribed to a young child, there is 
at any rate no lack of signs and tokens which may serve as a means 
of retaining the ideas, being associated with them by contiguity. 
At this stage, instinct and feeling have the upper hand. These 
obtain a vent in involuntary expressions, which become, as soon 
as the child is able to notice them, a sort of mark by which 
the percept or idea causing the feeling receives an impress dis- 
tinguishing it from others. Thus the very first formation of ideas is 
not wholly without extraneous support, even though it is not the 
word which affords it. The child begins life with a cry, but does 
not himself hear this cry. It is not long, however, before he begins 
to find a great satisfaction in the sounds made by himself. Out of 
these sounds, brought forth involuntarily, the child forms his first 
speech. Even at the age of six months he can often give answer in 
this language when he is spoken to. Afterwards there comes a 
period when this instinctive speech is used and modified with more 
freedom, so that an imitation of the speech he hears around him is 
attempted.^ At this intermediate stage the speech of each child is 
quite individual. It is only at the third stage that language, as 
historically developed, obtains a hold on the child, and then the 
combinations of ideas also become easier and livelier. 

It is no wonder that men are able to dispense with speech, after 
having availed themselves of it for a whole lifetime. The ideas 
have then naturally become strong enough to be able to endure, for 
at least a time, without the help of the symbol. Besides, they have 
gestures and actions, by which the ideas may be held fast. A 
striking example of the fact that ideas, when once formed, are 
independent of words, is afforded in a woman of seventy years of 
age, whom Kussmaul mentions.^ In consequence of an apoplectic 
seizure, she had lost the power of speaking and writing, and could 
give vent to sounds only when she was affected by violent emotion. 
She could read, however, and displayed great energy and intelli- 
gence in the recovery of her right to manage her property, which 
had been taken from her under the mistaken idea that she was 
weak in mind. 

1 I base this account on the store of words possessed by a two-year-old child. — Cf. also 
the work cited of Egger's, p. 20 ; Preyer, Die Seele des Kindes, p. 259, seq. (Eng. 
trans, ii. p. 99, seq.) 

2 Die Stortingen der Spr ache ^ p. 23, 



172 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

When a language lacks expressions for an idea, which is yet 
probably possessed by the people— as e.g, in the case of the Samo- 
yedes, who, according to Castren, have no term for gratitude — this 
may be explained in several ways. It may be that the feeling exists 
as an instinctive, involuntary emotion, which has not become an 
object of consciousness ; it is characteristic of savage races, that 
in their friendly as in their egotistic feelings they are children of 
the moment. Castren adds that a Samoyede will risk death for 
any one who has made him a present. Or the explanation might 
be that the Samoyedes do not have quite the same general idea as 
we have formed, the elements of what we called gratitude being 
perhaps included in the expression for a related virtue. Thus we, 
for example, have no one word to express the Latin " pietas.'^ ^ 

The primitive cognitive functions, sensation and perception, do 
not require the definite symbols of language. The memory-image, 
if not perfectly fresh and vivid, may, however, be in need of the 
name. The more the memory and the idea renew the reality 
for us and approximate to intuition, the more they are independent 
of the word (see 7, a and b). But with more faded and especially 
with typical and general ideas, the word is an essential help. With 
some people thought is an inner speech to the extent that intense 
thought makes them hoarse. For this reason thought has been 
called "a process of speech imperceptibly carried on in the 
central parts," which stands in the same relation to actual speak- 
ing as the will to actual movement.^ This is ; especially the 
case with persons whose ideas of words consist mainly of 
motor-representations.^ With other persons ideas of words are 
mainly auditory or visual ideas, i.e, they are reproductions of 
words as seen or heard.^ Still there seems to be with everybody an 
innervation, more or less strong, of the articulatory muscles in every 
representation of a word.^ 

In the general idea the word is of especial importance. For 
here there is no longer anything which can be intuited, and even the 
need for something to intuit introduces a danger, for it may lead to 
the confounding of the typical with the individual. Only by means 

1 Tegner, Sprakets jnakt ofver Tanken, pp. loo-ioi.— Thus the natives of Hawaii 
appear to have only one word for love, friendship, gratitude, kindness, and respect ; they 
denote all these feelings by the word aloha. Max Muller LecUires (2nd ed.) ii. p. 343. 

2 L. Geiger in the work cited, i, p. 58. 

3 Strieker, Studien iiber die Sprachvorstellungen (" Studies on the Ideas of Speech ), 
Vienna, 1880, p. 20, 33. . . . , . 

4 Cf. my treatise "UeberWiederkennen, Association und psychische Actlvitat ( F/.^r/^Z- 
yaAr^^c^rzyify. Wissenschaftl. Philosophie, vol. xiv. (1890), p. 178). 

5 [The text has been changed at Prof. Hoffding's request. (Tr.)] 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 173 

of the name can the clear and firm nucleus escape confusion with 
its obscure and changing surroundings. The name is, as it were, 
a substitute for the impossible intuition, and by misuse it may 
even take the place of the general idea. 

The deaf and dumb, even if they have not learnt to talk on 
their fingers, describe objects and experiences in the liveliest and 
most individual way by gestures and imitative movements. But 
this very individuahty and concreteness of their expressions makes 
it impossible for them to form clear and definite general ideas ; 
these do not get properly disjoined from individual ideas. Thus 
they indicate meat and food by pointing to their own body, 
red by touching the lips. They can express the special way in 
which a thing is made (a wall built, a dress cut out, etc.), but not 
the general idea of making. This is why the want of hearing and 
speech so greatly interferes with mental development.^ 

II. The definite limitation of the idea, which is rendered possible 
by the concentration of attention, assisted by the symbol of the 
name, makes possible in its turn the transition from idea to concept^ 
and from mere association of ideas to thought proper. 

Thought proper is not absolutely opposed to the involuntary flow 
of ideas (any more than to sensuous perception, see V. A. 5 and B. 3). 
From two sides relationship is apparent. In thought proper 
is exercised, only in a more regulated manner and according to 
certain definite principles, the same activity that manifests itself in 
all sensation, sensuous perception and association of ideas : the 
comparing activity, which we have described in its elementary, its 
implicate, and its free form. And this application of the comparing 
activity accordi7tg to definite principles is possible only because 
there is a definite interest in combining ideas in a way that can 
stand the test of experience. This interest leads to the search 
for a certain standard, by which every combination of ideas may be 
tested. This presupposes a critical moment, a special awakening of 
the attention and of the interest. And such a critical moment, 
again, presupposes that so abundant a material is involuntarily 
found and provisionally arranged, that consciousness acquires a 
freer attitude towards its elements. The simple, primitive con- 
sciousness feels no need to form concepts, but goes passively from 
disappointment to disappointment (V. A. 4). Thought proper pre- 

1 Tylor, Anthropology, London, 1881, p. 119. Oehlwein, Die Natiirliche Zeichen- 
sprache der Taubst7ijji7nen und ihre Psychische Bedeutting (" The Natural Language 
of Signs of the Deaf and Dumb, and its Psychical Significan.ee ")> Weimar, 1867, 
(quoted in Preyer, Die Scelg des Kindcs, p. 406). (Eng. trans, ii. p. 22, seq.') 



174 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

supposes a power of abstracting from the immediate present, and 
of taking into account more distant elements and relations. There 
must thus be exercised on the one hand a self-control to keep down 
the elements which spring up involuntarily, when they are not to 
the point, and on the other hand a positive striving to call up and 
collect everything which bears on the matter in hand. 

Thought is to this extent an affair of the will. But the will 
cannot create something out of nothing ; it can only form and 
change what is involuntarily given. Logical thought has essentially 
a critical character ; it examines, weighs and estimates the relation 
of similarity, which is always the final condition of the association 
of ideas, but a condition about which the involuntary activity of 
consciousness is not so particular. Thought does not, however, 
merely examine the given associations of ideas ; it always en- 
deavours to put in their place new associations, more in harmony 
with experience. It holds fast by its standard, and continues to 
reject until a combination of ideas arrives which satisfies it. This 
selection rests, like all selection, upon an association by similarity 
or a comparison : that is selected, which most closely and com- 
pletely answers to the requisitions of the standard. 

Thought proper has at its command no means and no forms, 
which have not been already employed in the involuntary flow of 
ideas. The difference is one of degree only, depends on the close- 
ness with which the relation of similarity is apprehended. The 
circumstance that the association of ideas becomes the object of 
express interest and conscious choice, cannot alter the laws of 
association. Thought proper can no more be emancipated from 
these laws, than any artificial machine can arrest the laws of 
external nature. But we can employ psychological laws in the 
service of our aims, just as the physical laws. 

That thought proper is an affair of the will, must not be taken 
to mean that the act of thought is always executed with full 
consciousness. Thought, if free and energetic, takes its course 
with such haste that we forget ourselves. When we really reflect, 
" we are sunk into thought," are overpowered by it. But the will 
is not quite the same thing as self-reflection and self-constraint. 
We may very well wholly forget ourselves, and yet guard against 
casual and unwarranted combinations of ideas, may avoid falling 
into inconsequence and error. Practice takes effect in thought as 
in every other activity. Before practice is acquired, opposition 
may often have to be overcome, and in the effort necessary, the 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 175 

part played by the will is clearly apparent : the principle to be 
appHed, the standard to be observed, must be kept hold of as 
the guiding thought (centre of association). When the practised 
thinker gives himself up to the course of his thoughts, there is not 
less concentration of attention, but the agency of the will is more 
hidden, because its energy is now at one with the energy of the 
flow of ideas. Only if difficulties and opposition appear, will it 
again become distinct. 

It is the business of logic, not of psychology, to set up a standard 
for combination of ideas, and to indicate the rules which such a 
standard affords for the association of ideas in harmony with 
experience. Logic is an artificial, psychology a natural science. 
But art grows out of nature and is a continuation of it. And it 
is also of interest psychologically to see that the standard for valid 
combinations of ideas is no other than an ideal expression of that 
which enters more or less distinctly into all involuntary association 
of ideas. Logic judges all associations of ideas according to the 
degree in which they satisfy the principle of identity, i.e.^ in which 
they fulfil the condition, that each idea, wherever and whenever it 
occurs, must have the same content {A = A). This principle 
corresponds to that recognition which is the presupposition of all 
association (V. B. 8 c). In the logic of concept, judgment and 
inference, is manifested the importance of this principle.^ 

The first condition of thought proper is that the ideas (simple, 
individual, or general) dealt with, shall be severally held fast 
and made precise. In the involuntary flow of ideas, the ideas 
have a vague character, and pass easily one into the other. By 
definite limitation (definition, determination of the concept), the 
content of the several ideas is established, and the ideas are thus 
converted into concepts. 

In judgment two or more concepts are combined, the one being 
shown to be a closer determination of the other, to present a part, 
a side, or an effect of what is contained in the other. At the root 
of the judgment is the percept or the idea of a connected whole 
which the judgment analyses. I make the judgment ''the man is 
good," when I see or conceive that the man acts in a certain way ; 
and in my judgment I bring to the fore that definite side from 
which the man appears to me on this occasion. If I pass from the 
subject of the judgment to the predicate, and transfer my attention 
from the idea of the man to the idea of goodness, I still do not let 

1 C/. my Treatise 07t Formal Logic, Copenhagen, 1884. 



176 OUTLINES 01^ PSYCHOLOGY [v 

go the subject, the idea of the man ; for supposing that I had let it 
go, by the time I reached the predicate (of goodness) the combina- 
tion of the two concepts would not have taken place. The judg- 
ment is a closer determination or analysis of the subject-concept, 
and the predicate-concept is thought only in its connection 
with the subject-concept. The mental operation, undertaken in 
judgment, is thus a dividing into parts, a special calling out 
of those elements which to the immediate apprehension were 
given in unresolved unity. — In the development of language there 
is a stage at which concept and judgment are not expressed in 
different forms. Root-words expressed originally events, actions 
or circumstances, they were "propositions in embryo." The word 
then signified indifferently, the subject of the action, the action 
itself and the object of the action.^ The need for a distinct term 
for each several part of the main idea could arise only after the 
attention had been directed to them separately. The earliest 
words of children are similarly " propositions in embryo." Bow- 
wow denotes " the dog," " there is a dog ! " as well as " the dog 
barks." Preyer describes as follows, how his child (at the age 
of twenty-three months) pronounced one of his first judgments : — 
" The child drank some milk which was too hot for him, quickly 
put the cup down, and said loudly and distinctly, gazing at me 
earnestly with eyes wide open, * Hot ! ' This one word was meant to 
signify ^ the drink was too hot.' — The cry 'tool' may mean 
either : (i) Where is my stool ; (2) My stool is broken ; (3) I want 
to be lifted on to the stool; (4) Here is a stool." ^ — When I am 
about to make a proposition, at first only the main thought is 
clearly present ; the formulation of the proposition takes place by 
differentiation of the subject- and predicate- concepts from the 
unity of the main thought. A speaker absorbed in his subject may 
never perhaps undertake the full analysis of his main thought ; the 
half involuntary mechanism of speech provides, however, for its pre- 
sentation in detail, without any express act of consciousness being 
required.^ The attention and the energy of the speaker would 
be far too much dissipated if he had to divide them between 
the main thought and its presentation in particular judgments. 
These facts seem to confirm the view of the judgment as an 
analysis. 

1 L. Geiger, Ursjtrtmg unci Entwickelung der menschlichen Sj>rache und Vernunftf 
I, p. 205. 
^ Preyer, Die Seele des Kindes^ p. 279, 310. [Eng. trans, ii. pp. 144, 154.] 
3 Cf. Kussmaul, Die Storungen der Sprache^ p^ 196. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 177 

The determination of concepts and the formulation of judgments 
are for logic only preliminaries to the inference. The inference is 
the clearest form of thought proper. By its means a judgment is 
proved ; i.e. deduced from one or more other judgments. Inference 
comes in, when doubt has been cast on the validity of a judgment, 
and it cannot be established by immediate reference to the per- 
cept. The assertion A is not = C, must be withdrawn \i A — B 
and B — C, The demonstrative force of the inference is based 
upon the principle of identity ; for if e.g. B = B does not hold 
good, an inference is impossible. Unless the principle of identity 
is presupposed, thought can make no progress. This principle 
is therefore the highest law of thought, the postulate on which 
all science depends. It is, however, no arbitrary or accidental 
postulate ; the relation of similarity underlying all association of 
ideas is expressed by the principle of identity in an ideal and 
absolute form, to which our actual associations attain at best 
only approximately. Psychologically the strict principle of identity 
can be realized only to a certain extent ; in reality there is, 
as frequently noted, no absolute repetition. The principle of 
identity is a logical abstraction. But still there is here a point at 
which logic and psychology so far approach one another, that the 
growth of logical thought becomes psychologically intelligible. 

If, on the contrary, the relation of similarity is not admitted 
as the presupposition of all association, the origin of logic is 
incomprehensible, and the principle of identity is given as an 
absolutely arbitrary principle. For whence should thought derive 
its standard, its principle, if this is not the idealized expression for 
the true nature of thought, and to be found consequently in im- 
perfect and vague forms at all stages of intellectual life 1 

John Stuart Mill, in his celebrated Logic, went a step farther, 
and tried to carry out a theory of inference not based upon the 
principle of identity. According to him the original inference 
is from particular to particular ; when a child has burnt itself, 
it cries at the sight of the fire, because it expects the pain 
to follow ; it thus argues from one particular phenomenon (the 
fire) to a different one (the pain). This inference can be based only 
on habit or instinct. — Mill overlooks, however, that there is a 
definite condition, without which the child's inference would not 
be possible. If the fire is not, as before, alight, then the child is 
mistaken. But if it is as before, he will get burned if he touches 
it. The principle of identity is thus involved, if the inference is 

N 



178 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

correct. The primitive consciousness gives itself, however, on 
account of its sanguine tendency, no time for confirming or weigh- 
ing resemblances {cf. V. B. 4). Only after repeated disappoint- 
ments does it learn " to be careful," i.e, to try how far the identity 
goes. It is through such experiences that the transition from the 
involuntary flow of ideas to thought proper is effected. To the 
involuntary flow of ideas any resemblance, any contact, suffices 
to establish a combination of ideas. Mythologies, dreams, the 
fancies of children, the delirium of the mentally deranged, and 
the changes in meaning of one and the same word, all seem to 
show that no combination of ideas is impossible. Thought proper 
reviews and tests the resemblances and tries to build up a structure 
of thought, in which by force of the principle of identity each 
several member is combined with the others. 

12. While a development from the concrete individual, through 
the typical individual, to the general, idea, leads us from the 
mere association of ideas to thought proper, another process 
of development may take place, which does not lead away from 
the concrete individual ideas, but rather results in the forma- 
tion of new ones. The creative power or imagination (in the 
narrower sense) ^ grows out of the same root as thought, but in a 
different direction. 

In order to understand this process of development, it must be 
borne in mind that even the concrete individual idea is complex in 
nature, a product of association (V. B. 9). Hence the possibility 
that the same elements may be linked in other ways, presented in 
other combinations. By the exchange of even some of its elements 
for others the individual idea may acquire another appearance. 
This happens more or less with all our memories. Special features 
get wiped out, and their place is taken by others without our noticing 
it. In the very cases where we keep secure hold of the essential 
features, this kind of transposition and shifting may take place in 
the subordinate features without attracting our attention, when we 
have no opportunity of comparing the memory-image with the per- 
cept. Dreams, whether dreams proper or waking dreams, go still 
further and transform the dominant and determining elements of 
the individual idea, thus creating ideas of individual persons, 

1 Imagination in the wider sense is identical with the power of ideation : this was the 
original meaning of the Greek word ^o.vraaia.. If we keep to this, then the whole doctrine 
of memory and of ideation is a doctrine of the imagination.— In the narrower sense, 
imagination is the power of forming new concrete ideas, and this is the sense in which we 
now employ the word. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 179 

things and events, which have never been presented in experience. 
We may dream of persons, as standing clearly and vividly before 
our eyes, whom we have never seen. 

We employ this power of free combination ^ daily when we try 
to get at the gist of something of which we do not know the full 
and complete facts. When we understand an allusion, we enlarge 
the given scattered elements into an individual totality. The in- 
ventor of a new mechanism combines given elements, the laws of 
whose activity he knows, into a totality and a connection which has 
no complete parallel in experience. The scientific discoverer in 
like manner looks round among his elements of experiences, tries 
their possible combinations in order to find the one which accords 
best with other experiences. During this process there is formed 
in his consciousness a succession of individual ideas, which are 
rejected one after another, until that one appears which best grasps 
and fits in the given elements. What is marvellous in scientific 
genius is the mental freedom with which it is able to abstract from 
experience, and to picture the different possibilities with all their 
consequences, in order to find by this means a new reality, not ac- 
cessible to direct experience. Kepler cited this mental freedom 
as a significant feature in the genius of Copernicus.^ 

The freedom in respect of what is given, which scientific imagina- 
tion presupposes, appears not only in the new combinations, but 
also in the power of discovering agreements, of finding the same 
fundamental relations, in the midst of very changed or compli- 
cated conditions. Such more deeply penetrating apprehension 
of similarity lies at the bottom of the association by contiguity at 
work in the combination ; starting from the single recognized or 
identified characteristic, a whole new connection (according to the 
law of totality) is constructed, as when Newton, according to the 
story, obtained from a falling apple the idea of the fundamental law 
of the planetary system. Free combination leaves the differences 
as they are, but brings the manifold elements into a new harmony. 
When, however, it works in the service of scientific inquiry, it always 
requires, as a corrective, thought proper with its power of weighing 
similarity and difference. The formal or abstract sciences (logic and 
mathematics) form therefore the basis and the corrective of the real 

1 This power is scarcely to be found at the lowest stage of human existence. The 
imagination of savages is reproductive, not constructive. Spencer, Princ. of Social.^ 
pp. 39 and 47; ... . 

2 " Copernicus vir maximo ingenio et, quod in hoc exercitio magni momenti est, animo 
libero." (Reuschle, Kepler und die A strono7iiie^ Frankfurt, 1871, p. 119.) 

N 2 



i8o OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

or concrete sciences (natural science and history). The development 
of scientific knowledge has for its end the discovery of a unity and 
similarity so deep that all differences may be contained within 
it, and on the other hand the arrangement of all differences in such 
clear and definite forms that the laws of similarity appear as of 
themselves. 

Imagination, while in the service of scientific knowledge, is only 
a by-way, which the ideational process takes because the direct road 
is impracticable. Sometimes this by-wayvcannot be pursued to the 
end ; but it may still be admissible if its general direction, the 
curve which it makes, indicates an agreement with experience. 
Cognition then ends with an hypothesis. There is, however, a 
mode of free combination in which such reference to given 
experience is not possible, and the thing aimed at is rather an 
independent and new creation, similar in kind to the involuntary 
productions of dreams. Artistic imagination differs from the 
imagination of the scientific student in this, that its final aim is not 
agreement with certain definite percepts, but is attained by the 
creation of a concrete and individual form, quite apart from the 
question whether or no an absolutely similar form exists in reality. 
Its creations should bear the character of reality, but need not 
accord with any definite reality. 

The psychological property of the imagination depends in the 
individual cases in part upon the degree of consciousness or spon- 
taneity with which it works, in part upon the species of association 
of ideas which controls it, and in part upon its relation to the 
actual percept. 

{a) With regard to the degree of express consciousness with which 
the imagination works, three forms may be distinguished. It may 
act almost unconsciously and involuntarily, so as to approach the 
nature of dream-consciousness. The interweaving of the ele- 
ments of the picture in the imagination takes place in great 
measure below the threshold of consciousness, so that the image 
suddenly emerges in consciousness complete in its broad outhnes, 
the conscious result of an unconscious process {cf. III.). Goethe 
relates that " for several years his productive talent never left him 
for a moment ; '^ it must thus have been active without conscious 
exertion on his part being demanded. He relates of " Werthers 
Leiden '' (The Sorrows of Werther) : " Having written this little 
work almost unconsciously, like a somnambulist, I marvelled at it 
myself when I read it through." In the introductory poem to the 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION i8i 

Roskilde Rim^ Grundtvig ^ says : " I have sung of that which I have 
never known." — A step nearer to imaginative production with a 
conscious end, we have improvisation, where a given motive and 
the movement of idea and feehng which it sets up gives the 
impulse to new combination. Madame de Stael, in Corinne^ 
strikingly compares improvisation with a lively conversation — 
one reply calls for another when once the ice is broken. In the 
description of Corinne's improvisation, the influence of the passing 
motives and moods comes out ; after Corinne has first praised " the 
glory and happiness of Italy," the theme given by the audience, 
she is moved by the sad expression in the countenance of one of 
the audience to strike a more serious key and "to speak of happiness 
with less assurance." — Finally, the activity of artistic imagination 
may bear a certain resemblance to the scientific attempt to solve a 
problem. In contrast both to instinctive creation, which does not 
know what it does, and to the free evolution of images as they 
spring out of the passing mood, stands the energetic working to 
mould a refractory material to a new form. The poet, as little 
as the student, tolerates the self-contradictory and disconnected. 
But for the poet the greatest contradiction is the refusal of the 
elements to combine into an individual form. Every one receives 
impressions, experiences mental states ; but it is only apparent 
to a few that these may be made use of as the stones of a new 
structure. The majority accept the several experiences as they 
chance. The imagination of the poet, on the contrary, continues 
to work at them until they are formed into one individual image, 
and only then feels clear and at ease. 

{b) As a faculty of free combination, the imagination acts by 
means of association by contiguity, when it combines elements 
which from their nature either are, or may be, connected in time 
and space. The strength and liveliness of the imagination depend 
on the power of forming images full and complete in every detail 
(together with the capacity for presenting each separate element 
with impressive force). Men with little imagination do not give 
any such individualized character to their images, but leave them 
to be presented in a more indefinite form (like the primitive ideas 
mentioned in § 9). Or if they do form definite and individualized 
ideas, these are quite fixed and unchangeable, whereas the artistic- 
imagination is able to take the elements out of their original com- 
binations and to place them in new combinations as parts of 

1 A celebrated Danish poet. 



182 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

new concrete individual ideas. In association by contiguity, again, 
the association of what is given simultaneously plays in artistic 
imagination the greatest part, while for the student of science the 
succession of events and phenomena has most interest.^ 

The artistic (and especially the poetic) imagination is dis- 
tinguished, however, not less by the energy of the association by 
similarity. A slight hint, an insignificant occasion, suffices to call 
up the idea of the greatest relations, and the poetic imagination, 
which discovers the operation of great laws in even the smallest 
relations, has a certain kinship to the scientific imagination. — As 
Bain observes, association by similarity plays an important part 
only in the imagination of the poet, not in that of the painter or 
musician, {^cf, p. 153, on the associations which rest on analogy 
and are expressed in the metaphors of speech and in poetic 
imagery). 

ic) Artistic imagination in its simplest form is imitation of reality, 
and in a certain sense it never goes beyond this. To grasp and to 
reproduce the real in all its individual fulness is a problem which 
can be solved only when the intuitive and imaginative powers have 
reached their highest development. This is the realistic element in 
all art, appearing now as a sober, scrutinizing penetration, now as 
a sympathetic absorption in the material given. Without this im- 
pulse art would beat the air. Artistic interest makes here an 
approach to scientific ; the difference between them is that what to 
the one is an end, is to the other a means. 

The concrete individual idea, which to the thinker is only an 
example or a symbol, often even a distracting symbol, is to the 
artist the highest end. Neither thinker nor artist, however, leave 
the given material as it originally is. All art is distinguished from 
mere tracing or reduplication of reality by this, that it bears the 
stamp of the mind whose work it is. This stamp does not come 
from the artist's personality being made apparent to the spec- 
tator, but from the fact that the artist makes a definite choice, 
whether himself conscious of it or not, of what he will give and 
how he will give it. Here the influence of the will comes to light, 
just as in the psychology of thought. And here, just as little as 
there, does this influence of the will imply voluntariness. It is the 
expression for the effort inspired by a dominant feeling, which 
guides the artist in his work. With the way in which this feeling 
develops, the psychology of cognition has nothing to do, any 

1 Cf. the Interesting remarks in John Stuart Mill's System of Logic ^ iii. 13, 6. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 183 

more than with the question as to what determines the value of the 
work of art for the spectator. 

In the selection of material and treatment, lies the idealistic 
element of all art, an element from which even so-called realism 
can emancipate itself only in appearance. This is the open side 
of art, by which it is connected with the stirrings of mental 
life in other provinces. But whatever deep movements may be 
concerned, the question, from an artistic point of view, is as to the 
results to which they lead. The poet may, e.g.^ be a thinker and a 
scholar ; poetically, however, it is important that his work should 
be something more than abstract thoughts translated into verse- 
that image, feeling, and thought should really harmonize from first 
to last. The idealism which seeks to individualize that which has 
lost vital connection with the concrete individual reality, is 
unpsychological. On the contrary, in that idealistic element 
present in all artistic creation, there may be the germ of an 
idealization of actual facts. Goethe was struck by Merck's descrip- 
tion of his aim as contrasted with that of the brothers Stolberg. 
" Your endeavour, your fixed aim, is to give poetic form to the \ 
actual ; the others make the attempt to actualize the so-called t 
poetic, the imaginative, and that results only in absurdity." {Aus i 
7nei7ievi Lcbcn, 18 Buch.) The poetic form may cast a light ) 
en reality, which it does not naturally or always possess, and the 
dominant feeling of the poet discovers an order of the universe, 
in which his ideals find their satisfaction. In this way art seeks 
to spin out the threads which may be already traced in nature ; 
it becomes the ideal continuation of natural evolution. Thus, 
e.g., the art of sculpture completes that subordination of the vegeta- 
tive to the animal life, which a comparison of the higher with the 
lower forms of organic life clearly exhibits.^ Through its very 
idealism art is again related to nature ; for nature makes directly 
or indirectly a selection (natural and sexual selection), by which 
the transition from lower to higher forms is effected. A conception 
of the artistic aim, which should narrow it to the construction 
of a mosaic of the particular percepts of real things, would 
be opposed to nature itself, for nature is incessantly engaged in 
'' idealizing," inasmuch as in the struggle for existence forms and 
characteristics are always becoming more strongly marked, in 

1 J. C. Schiodte, Det Vegetative og det Aniniale i den Dyriske og Menncskelige 
Fortn ("The Vegetative and the Animal Elements in the Structure of Animals and 
Men "). Nordisk Tidsskrift, udg af den Letterstedtske Forening (" Northern periodi- 
cal, published by the Letterstedt's Union"), 1878, p. 345. 



i§4 Outlines of psychology [v 

close connection with the sphere within which the struggle is 
carried on. 

Unpsychological realism gives fragments or patched-up images, 
while nature itself is incessantly forming new individual types. 
Unpsychological idealism partly wastes its energy over the insoluble 
problem of giving flesh and bl©od to abstractions, partly turns 
effeminately away from the inharmonious and ugly in existence. 
True art teaches us to use our eyes, but at the same time to fasten 
on the broad suggestive features and so learn to understand reality 
better. 

C — Apprehension of Time and Space, 

I. It has been already implied in the provisional account 
of conscious life, that mental phenomena make their appearance 
in the form of time. Change, transition, alternation — and inner 
connection throughout all change — these were the most important 
characteristics of consciousness. But in these the form of time 
is already given. Psychology must therefore come to a pause 
at this form, as something originally given, a psychological ultimate 
presupposed in all conscious phenomena, which cannot be itself 
made an object of explanation. 

It is different when the question is of the idea of time, of 
temporal relations. This idea has its psychological history like 
every other. The mental states may continuously succeed one 
another without an idea of this succession necessarily resulting. 
The more nearly consciousness approximates to a series of different 
and mutually independent sensations and ideas — which as already 
shown is the same thing as an approximation to the dissolution 
of consciousness — so much the smaller is the possibility of an idea 
of time : the seconds change, but each second completely takes 
possession of consciousness, without any energy remaining for that 
which went before or will come after. Not only in its dissolution? 
but also in its origin consciousness comes near to being a series 
(cf. p. 138, seg'.), and for this reason the idea of time is scarcely to 
be traced in children before the third year. We have seen in an earlier 
connection, how expectation and free memory arise, as special 
states only gradually during the conflict of experiences with ex- 
clusive sensation and with native sanguineness (B. 4). We now 
complete this account of the development of memory, adducing 
an important feature in it, the reference, namely, of the content of 
memory to definite points of time. 



v] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 185 

The simplest form of consciousness would be one in which 
two states {a and b) succeeded one another without inter- 
m.ediate links. Now so long as a and b each independently 
occupy consciousness, no idea of time can arise ; a is forgotten 
when b appears, and vice versa. Something more is required which 
shall so yoke together a and b^ that the change from the one to the 
other may appear as the different filling up of one and the same 
schema. This common bond can be no other than a sensation or 
a feeling, which remains constant while a and b alternate, and which 
affords in consequence the relatively constant background, in con- 
trast to which alternation, succession, may be plainly apparent. 
In addition to the alternating a and b^ we must have then a third 
relatively invariable element, ;r, to make possible a contrast. 
This recalls the fact, that the unity of the self, of consciousness, 
is sustained not only by the formal connection and the fornial 
interaction between everything in consciousness, but also by a 
ruling feeling {B. 5.) This fundamental feeling, which is in a great 
measure, and as regards the lowest conscious life exclusively, 
determined by the general or vital feelings, is thus a necessary 
presupposition of the apprehension of time. The immediate 
apprehension of the difference or contrast between what is constant 
and what is variable is, however, only a sensation of time, and no 
idea of ti?ne. 

2. The apprehension of time becomes clearer when intermediate 
links are inserted between a and b, so that in order to get from 
a to b, the consciousness must pass through 7n and ;^, always with x 
as the background for the whole series of changing states. It is, 
however, essential that 7n and n should not be of so much 
strength and interest as to cast a and b into the shade, but that 
a and b should always remain the principal points. The recognition 
of a and b as the starting and final points of a series of states or 
elements must be added, if there is to be not only a sensation of 
time, but a real consciousness of time, an idea of time. Let a, 
e.g., be the sensation of hunger, b the sensation of satisfaction, 
while 7n and n represent the means which lead from hunger to 
satisfaction (the sight of the prey, securing it, etc.). There will 
thus be formed a firm connection, a, m, n, b, and a rhythmical 
alternation takes place which becomes gradually familiar to con- 
sciousness and easily surveyed. Now the more numerous the 
states become through a higher development, the more necessary it 
is to have certain points which always recur as raised places in 



i86 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

the succession, which may be recognized and from which the others 
may be surveyed and measured. 

The idea of time involves therefore two things : (i), the con- 
sciousness of change, of succession ; this arises through contrast 
to a constant sensation : (2), repetition of certain states which 
have a strong hold on consciousness ; the recognition of these 
makes a certain measuring and grouping possible in the series of 
changes. 

It would not be possible, from a simple constant sensation or a 
simple constant feeling, to have the idea of time. The more we 
are absorbed in a single thought, the more we are " rapt,'' as it 
were, out of time ; for which reason the mystics call eternity an 
" enduring present.'^ On the other hand, the idea of time could not 
possibly be derived from mere succession of sensations ; something 
would be needed that might lead to the surveying and measuring 
of the succession. 

The larger the number of rhythmical series, and the more practice 
consciousness has in surveying them, the more clearly the idea of the 
temporal series stands out with a certain contrast to the sensations 
occupying the series. The space between a and b may be filled 
up in different ways : a, m, n, b, or a, p, q, b. What fills up 
the space between a and b may reappear in a different setting : 
a, m, 7t, b, or c, m, n, d. And the same number of particles 
of time as are occupied by the series a, m, 7i, b, may be occupied 
under different circumstances by the series c,p, q, d, etc. Here 
then are the conditions for the formation of a general idea of 
time. 

3. That general outline, or pattern, which we think of as filled 
up in different ways, cannot in itself be pictured. It shares the 
fate of all general ideas, and requires an individual representation. 
But the time that we can immediately picture or bring together in 
one moment is very short. It has been shown by experiments 
(made by Vierordt), that we have a tendency to over-estimate the 
duration of very small intervals of time, and to under-estimate the 
duration of long intervals. More recently it has been shown that 
the actual and the estimated difference of time coincide when the 
interval is 1*25, or i^ second. It has further been proved that 
there are several of such "points of indifference," so that there 
are various little sections of time, which we can employ as a 
standard for the larger. Curiously enough, among longer periods 
the uneven multiples of 1*25 seconds seem to be the most accurately 



v] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 187 

apprehended.^ This bears out the effect attributed to the rhythmical 
change of sensations : we employ a certain short rhythm in measur- 
ing succession. Exact estimation and survey is not possible in 
longer intervals, even though practice may sharpen the sense of 
time in no small degree. Should the idea have as its content 
a temporal series which extends far beyond the present instant, 
this content is bound to undergo contraction. With perfect 
clearness I can picture to myself only the transition from one 
second to another ; the idea of portions of time which comprise 
myriads of seconds, can be had only symbolically. If we were 
to remember past time as clearly as we picture the minutes that 
form what we call the present, memory would become an im- 
possibility. We always therefore apply in thought a standard of 
measurement to the past, different from that applied to the present 
and immediate future. It is only when we want to re-live the past, 
that we try to renew the distinctions of time in our remembrance, 
and even then never so fully as to give it the extension of the 
present. It is with time as with the strength of sensations 
(p. 146), both the duration and the strength of the original 
experiences are only indirectly remembered. — It is due to this 
symbolic character of the idea of time, when it has attained to 
a certain development, that it is formed only relatively late, and 
is so long confined within certain limits. It attains to full clear- 
ness only when it becomes possible to represent it in a distinct 
symbolic form, to secure the transitory ideational rhythm in an 
image at rest. And this can only be when the apprehension of 
space comes to its aid. Only in the form of space is an intuition 
of time possible. We then apprehend time as a straight line, 
indefinitely extended in either direction. 

The idea of time is a typical individual idea. Wherever we ob- 
serve time, we have before us portions of the same time. It is like 
a river looked at from different aspects. Often it is hidden from 
our view, as when we sleep, are unconscious, or from any other 
reason do not know "how the time has gone." But as soon as the 
attention is again awakened we reconstruct the lost course of time. 
Thus time is not merely related to individual times as a general 
concept to the individual cases included under it, but also as our 

1 Glass \ Kritisches iind Experiincntalcs iiher den Zeitslnn (Wundt's PhilosopJiische 
Stiidien, iv. p. 423, seq). — Earlier treatment of the same question is to be found also in 
Wundt's Studieji, i. p, 78, seq. and ii. p. 576, seq. According to the experiments of Glass, 
Fechner's law (^y! p. no) also holds good for the estimation of time. [The alteration 
here of text and note is made at Prof. Hoffding's request. (Tr.)] 



i88 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

predominating idea of an individual to our several experiences of 
that individual. 

4. So long as the idea of time is grounded only on the change of 
our inner states, the estimation of time is very uncertain. Two 
circumstances are in this connection of especially great importance ; 
the interest in the content of the experiences and the number of 
traits experienced. 

The interest in what is experienced may have very diverse in- 
fluence. In concentrating the attention and so preventing con- 
sciousness from noticing the succession, it shortens the time both 
during the actual experience and in the remembrance. Seven 
years passed for Jacob like a few days, because he loved Rachel. 
But interest may also lengthen the time, since we involuntarily 
argue from the importance and significance of the content that a 
long time must have elapsed. We give symbolical expression to 
the fulness of content by extension of time. It is connected 
with this, that anything that precedes a very important crisis in 
our life recedes in time : it appears to us so foreign and at the 
same time so faded, that we can understand it to be a part of our 
experience only by referring it to a remote date. We have a general 
disposition to attribute faint memory-images to a more distant, and 
lively remembrances to a more recent time, than properly belongs 
to them. 

The more varied the experience (apart from the question of in- 
terest), the more quickly it seems to pass/ but the longer the 
time seems in our memory.^ Conversely, the more monotonous 
the experience, the more slowly the time passes, but the shorter it 
seems in memory. — In dreams, or in states especially favourable to 
the recall of the past in memory {cf. p. 149 seq.)^ it sometimes seems 
as though a great space of time had elapsed, because a multitude 
of images have been spread out before us. Persons who have been 
in danger of death from drowning or other causes, have seen their 
whole life pass before them in a few instants. De Quincey de- 
scribes how, after taking opium, he often thought he had lived 
eighty or a hundred years in a single night, sometimes indeed 
it even seemed to him as though a thousand years had elapsed 

1 It agrees with this, that when something is moved with uniform speed over the 
surface of the skin, the movement seems to be quickest on those parts where the sense of 
localization is finest. 

2 This may perhaps afford the answer to a question which was asked in the first 
volume of the Kevue PhilosoJ>higue, why the content of a memory which is in its turn 
remembered, is referred to a more distant time than a content remembered at first hand. 
The first remembrance forms, in relation to the second, a station, an intermediate term, 
which serves as a point of division and so makes the perspective plainer. 



V THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 189 

between the one day and the next. Time seemed to him to swell.^ 
To the ecstatic seer, time and eternity are unrolled in vision, 
although the vision is really over before the hour-glass is emptied. 

Each individual brings his own scale of measurement, depending 
in part on the more or less energetic interest with which he spends 
his life and attends to the passing events, in part on the speed with 
which his ideas are accustomed to move. A less interesting content 
and a slower action than usual excite weariness and tedium. — The 
sense of time affords also simple examples of the effect of contrast, 
for it has been shown that an individual, if he has first tried to 
calculate a short space of time and then tries a long one, will judge 
this latter to be even longer than it really is ; and he will 
judge a short one to be shorter than it is after previously appre- 
hending a longer one. In this latter case the effect of contrast is 
even stronger than in the former.^ 

The need of substituting an objective scale of measurement for 
the subjective, the uncertainty of which must easily have been 
noticeable, made itself early felt. The great, regularly recurring 
phenomena of nature afforded a good scheme of measurement. 
The movements of the sun and of the moon, day and night, morn- 
ing, noon and evening, served as a basis. For finer division the 
sand of an hour-glass, the water of a klepsydra, or even a burning 
candle were employed. But great precision became possible only 
by means of the pendulum and the chronoscope. Wheatstone 
measured the rate of an electric spark, and found it to be 
11^.200 ^^ ^ second. With Siemens's chronoscope it is possible 
to calculate even ioooTo^o ^^ ^ second.^ 

We may think of this exactness as carried to even higher degrees. 
A final point is not, however, conceivable. We measure time by 
the help of uniform movements in nature. But this uniformity has 
itself to be established, so that we move here in a circle. Absolute 
time might be thought as realized in nature, so long as it was believed 
with Aristotle that the heavenly bodies revolved with eternal immu- 
tability and uniformity ; but, this belief once abandoned, the idea 
of absolutely uniform time loses its basis in reality. This conse- 
quence, the relativity of time, was perceived by Giordano Bruno.* 

1 Confessions of an Ophmi Eater ^ p. i6i. 

2 V. Estel, Neue Versitche nber den Zeitsinn (" Recent Inquiries into the Sense of 
Time,") (Wundt's ^2'7^^z>«, ii. p. 55). 

3 Jevons, Principles of Science, 4th ed., p. 307, seq. — A. Paulsen, Naturkrdfierne 
(" Forces of Nature ") iii. p. 129, 

4 Cf Brunnhofer, Giordano Brtinos Weltanschauung (" Giordano Bruno's Conception 
of the Universe,") Leipzig, 1882, p. 187, seq. 



I90 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

An absolutely uniform time is an ideal, requiring that every possible 
estimation of time shall be subjected to a further correction. Every 
standard which has been tried with a view to absolute uniformity, has 
proved to be variable. Only in the symbolical representation of 
time as a line is absolute uniformity to be found. But here idealizing 
abstraction has put its hand to the work. The conception of abso- 
lute time is a mathematical abstraction. Absolute time is quite 
continuous and quite uniform ; its connection is never interrupted, 
and each instant of it is exactly like every other. Psychological 
time, i.e, the time which we can really apprehend and picture to 
ourselves, has to be perpetually reconstructed, for we apprehend it 
immediately only in fragments, and its seconds are of different 
specific weight, according to the importance and variety of content. 
Psychological time is always limited ; we always make a pause at 
a certain point, when we look forwards or backwards. But we have 
the consciousness that every limit is accidental and subjective, and 
has its cause in fatigue of the imagination. Every beginning and 
every end is only relative. Absolute time is unending, i.e, must be 
conceived as continued beyond every limit. 

5. That the form of time is present from the beginning of con- 
sciousness cannot be called in question. The psychological ex- 
amination of time has to do therefore only with the idea of time 
and the estimation of time. On the other hand, it is a disputed 
point whether even the /or7n of space is original. That it cannot 
at any rate stand in the same intimate relation to consciousness as 
the form of time is evident from the general character of conscious- 
ness. The states of consciousness succeed one another in time ; 
but there is no sense in which they can be said to be extended in 
space. What appears in the form of space can be only the object 
of consciousness, not consciousness itself. This at once implies 
that the form of time is psychologically more original than the form 
of space ; the latter does not seem to be absolutely necessary to 
consciousness. The present question is, whether experience teaches 
that in reality the form of space is a psychical product formed ac- 
cording to general psychological laws. There would then be, or 
have been, a stage in the development of consciousness when sen- 
sations and ideas were only presented with a certain distinctness 
and a certain quality, without having their content framed into 
extended images. 

It is difficult for us to conceive a consciousness without any 
apprehension of space. We ourselves think constantly in images. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 191 

We cannot clearly apprehend and express even our moods and 
feelings without the help of intuitions and images. It might be 
concluded from this that the form of space must be original ; it 
might even seem as though the symbol was nearer to us than the 
thing symbohzed, and the intuition of space consequently more 
original than the intuition of time. Albert Lange, an acute 
thinker, did actually come to this conclusion. He says, " The em- 
pirical perception of our inner states can certainly not be effectuated 
in the mere form of time. We have always a number of simul- 
taneous sensations, which can be brought into synthesis only in 

the form of a spatial image All our empirical ideas of time 

are associated with ideas of space. A line symbolizes the course 
of time. Movements in space afford the means of measuring time. 
Should it not be concluded that the idea of time is altogether 
secondary to the idea of space ?'^ {Logische Studien^ Iserlohn, 1877, 
p. 139). — In answer to this it must first be observed that the idea 
of space is not necessarily the more original because it is presup- 
posed in the higher and clearer development of the idea and 
measurement of time (see 3 — 4). Lange infers too much from the 
necessity of a symbolic representation. The thought must be 
more original than the name, although the name is necessary to its 
full clearness and precision. However closely the feeling may be 
connected with its expression, it would be putting the cart before 
the horse to conceive the former as secondary to the latter. Only 
in the higher stages of the conscious life is there a wide field of 
symbols at its service. It is only in two of our senses, sight and 
touch, that the form of space plays an all-important part ; in hear- 
ing, smell, and taste there is originally no localization ; in these we 
have to do only with the distinctness and quality of the sensations. 
The real definite intuition of space is, as will be seen in the 
following section, linked with the visual sensations. The visual 
images play so great a part in our ideational world that we can 
with difficulty abstract from them. The more we fix the attention 
on sounds, on impressions of taste and smell, the more we ap- 
proach to a consciousness endowed only with the form of time, and 
begin to perceive the possibility of having in consciousness an 
inner variety not united in the form of space. 

This appears still more clearly in respect of states of feeling. 
These are, indeed, for the most part accompanied by local sensations 
(^.^., in the breast, in the heart) ; but it is easy by inner observa- 
tion to distinguish between the actual feeling and its organic 



192 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

consequences. Pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, hope and fear 
may stir in us, without being at once symboHzed. Though we may 
require spatial images for the clear apprehension of our feelings, 
yet what these images express is not the feeling, but its occasion 
or its effect. The idea of joy consists, for most people, in the idea 
of something cheerful and smiling. But the more intense the 
emotion, the more it suppresses all such symbolic images. In every 
feeling there is something inexpressible, incommensurable with 
any expression. The feelings drive us to search for forms and 
expressions, but are not themselves arranged in the form of 
space. If in a dejected mood there gleams a ray of hope, 
we do not set it above or below, to the right or the left, of the 
dejection, as with simultaneous sensations of different colours. 
Different elements of consciousness may thus be experienced 
simultaneously, without being arranged in the form of space. The 
want of clearness and difficulty of immediate psychological per- 
ception are in a measure connected with this (see p. 22). We lack a 
form of intuition for simultaneous internal phenomena, while for 
simultaneous external phenomena we possess one. 

6. We apprehend space in three dimensions ; up and down, left 
and right, forwards and backwards. These three may be reduced 
to two : to distance (or depth) and superficial extension. 

It will easily be seen that the apprehension of distance cannot 
owe its origin to any single sensation. Every sensation pre- 
supposes, psychologically, that a physical excitation reaches the 
sense-organ. But distance does not in itself make any physical 
impression upon us. We measure distance by a line from the 
object to us; but no excitation can directly inform us of the 
existence of this line. The line denotes the direction of the excita- 
tion, but does not itself give rise to a sensation. We can apprehend 
distance only by in some way or other measuring out such a line : 
but this measuring is no single sensation, but a process of com- 
parison, which either already involves a certain idea of space or 
else is grounded on the degrees and kinds of sensations which we 
have when we approach the object or move a part of our body 
towards it. 

We do in fact thus measure out by movement, whenever we 
apprehend an object {cf, p. 119). The eye involuntarily accommo- 
dates itself so that the excitation of light may fall on the yellow 
spot of the retina. The lens becomes more convex, the nearer the 
object is to us. The two eyes are so placed, that the visual axes 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 193 

converge more or less, according to the distance of that which 
attracts the attention : if I look at a near object, my eyes are 
turned inwards (by means of the muscles attached to the inner 
side) ; if I then turn my gaze to the distance, my eyes are 
turned outwards (by means of the outer muscles of the eyes). 
We grasp at an object, or move towards it, in order to touch it. 
In these several ways we receive motor-sensations, which are 
definitely connected with the position of the object relatively to 
us. With the appearance or feel of the object comes then to be 
connected, by association or habit, the reproduction of the motor- 
sensations, a necessary presupposition to the most distinct appre- 
hension of the object. More or less clearly, distance signifies 
to us the greater or smaller series of motor-sensations, which 
we have because our sense-organs (especially the organs of sight 
and touch) are moved so as to receive the most distinct excita- 
tions possible,^ or which we should have if we moved from our 
standpoint to the object. It agrees with this, that the appre- 
hension of distance is clear and plain only in the case of near 
objects, and that in the case of distinct objects it is the plainer the 
more familiar they are to us. The very plainest apprehension of 
space is obtained from what we have directly measured with 
our own hands. Greater distances (like greater portions of time) 
are understood only symbolically, being regarded as a sum of 
smaller distances directly measurable. 

The sense of touch and the motor-sensations linked with its 
activity, are the original basis of the apprehension of distance. 
We take the true measure of an object by actively feeling it. The 
distances thus learned, we always mentally read into our visual 
apprehension. Distant objects, which seem small to sight, we 
estimate immediately according to the size they would appear 
to the sense of touch. Then, but in a secondary way only, the 
size of known objects as presented to sight, becomes in its turn 
a means of estimating their distance. 

This theory, first propounded by Berkeley ^ (Ty^^^ry ^ Vision^ 
Dublin, 1709), is partially confirmed by observations on new-born 
infants and on persons blind from birth who have recovered their 

1 As Strieker {Studien iibcr die Assoziation der Vorstelhmgen^ Wien, 1883, p. 56) 
has observed that we have such motor-sensations even when, with our eyes shut, we pass 
from the idea of something distant to the idea of something very near. We notice that 
something takes place in the eye. 

2 Berkeley, however, does not lay so much stress on the motor-sensations, as we have in 
the above exposition. Bain and Spencer have especially brought out the force of the 
motor-sensations in the apprehension of space. — Helmholtz and Wundt have carried the 
theory further. 

O 



194 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

sight. Although a child turns very early towards the light, it 
ecarcely apprehends distance so soon. The movements of the two 
eyes are as a rule not co-ordinated, so that the visual axes do not 
at first always meet in the point which is the object of apprehen- 
sion, and that they should do so would be an indispensable pre- 
supposition, were the apprehension of distance to depend upon an 
innate mechanism, coming at once into activity.^ Only gradually 
(in the course of the first three months) is practice in co-ordinating 
the eyes obtained, and squinting no longer frequent. And even 
after accommodation has been acquired, the secure apprehension of 
distance is wanting, as appears from the fact that the child grasps 
after things which are out of reach. Even in the second and third 
years, the estimation of distance is imperfect.^ 

Even in later years the combined action of the two eyes is not 
quite harmonious. With practice we may obtain double images of 
objects. This is most easily effected by fixing the gaze on a point 
in the back-ground of the field of vision while attending to an 
object lying in a straight line in front of the point ; this object will 
then be seen doubled.^ 

It is not quite certain, whether it is the same with new-born 
animals as with human beings. Spalding's* experiments with 
chickens just hatched, and with pigs just born, show that these 
animals are at once able to find their food with great certainty. 
The chickens run quickly to the corn or to an insect,^ and the 
pigs to their mother's teats. A young pig which was placed 
on a chair, ten minutes after the bandage which had been over 
its eyes from birth was removed, appeared to measure the dis- 
tance to the ground, knelt down and jumped off. — This might 
seem to show an immediate apprehension of distance ; but we 
must be on our guard against attributing too much importance 

1 Descartes had already subscribed to this view, maintained in our times by the so-called 
"nativism." Descartes allowed, however, that in the immediate apprehension of 
distance, however simple it might appear, there yet lay involved a comparison 
(ratiocinatio involuta, similis illi, qua geometrae per duas stationes diversas loca inaccessa 
dimetiuntur. — Dioptrica, ch. 5, § 13). Here is at once implied the theory of unconscious 
inferences, and that certainly not by an empiricist, but by a nativist. 

2 Preyer, Die Seele des Kindes^ pp. 24 — 29, 38, seq. 112. (Eng. trans. I. 34-41, 50, seq.., 
180.) 

3 [See Bernstein, 131, 132. (Tr.)] 

4 Spalding put a little hood over the head of his chickens as soon as they crept out of 
the Q.^z, and before they had made use of their visual power. He kept them thus for two 
days, until they were able to move about. (Romanes, Mental Evohition in Animals^ 
p. 161, seq^ „ . . 

5 It had been already observed by Adam Smith (" On the External Senses " in his 
Essays on Philosophical Subjects, edited by Dugald Stewart), that this sure knowledge 
of surroundings immediately after birth is only found in birds which build their nests on 
level ground, not in those which build in trees and in other less accessible places. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 195 

to these facts, for it is conceivable that an immediate in- 
stinct comes into play, which, under the guidance of sensations 
of sight, of smell, or of hearing, leads the animal to its food, 
and something similar may be the case as regards the jumping. 
It is scarcely, therefore, permissible to postulate an actual 
apprehension of distance before experience and practice, even 
though the course of education may in this, as in so many other 
respects, be much shorter for the animal than for man. Even 
with respect to man, the ease and speed with which the apprehen- 
sion of distance is developed, is scarcely to be explained without 
supposing that inherited tendencies and powers play a part. The 
sensations, by combination of which the apprehension of distance 
is conditioned, are more familiar to the individual if they have 
played an important part in the course of the evolution of the 
whole race. 

The experiences of the blind from birth who have recovered 
their sight likewise exhibit features, which bear out the theory 
founded by Berkeley. The blind man operated on by Cheselden 
(1728) was, after recovering his sight, so incapable of judging dis- 
tances, that he thought all objects " touched his eyes ^' (as he 
himself expressed it), just as that which he felt touched his hand. 
The patient operated on by Franz (1840) apprehended a cube as a 
square, a sphere as a disk, and a pyramid as a triangle ; he came to 
understand these things only by the sense of touch. Everything 
looked to him perfectly flat. Dufour's patient (1876) could not 
judge of distances without help of the hands. He went with his 
hands stretched out in front of him to the shining door-latch, to 
which his attention had been directed, but came to a stop two steps 
away from it, and made several vain attempts before he succeeded 
in laying hold of it. — If it is said, with respect to this last example, 
that any one who moves towards an object must have an idea of 
its distance, this is an unwarranted inference. It is only necessary 
so to direct the movement, that the guiding visual sensation does 
not lose, but gradually gains, in strength, and this involves no idea 
of distance. There is a game, in which an object has to be found 
with the help of music, the music growing louder as the object is 
approached, softer as it is left in the distance. In this it is evident 
that the persons searching are guided by no apprehension of dis- 
tance ; the movement is immediately regulated by the force of the 
music. 

If the view now presented is right, the apprehension of distance 

O 2 



196 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

results from association between the sensations and representations 
of sight, of touch, and of movement. This association is supported 
by an innate and inherited basis, which in the case of many- 
animals may perhaps be so perfectly developed that the influence 
of experience plays only a subordinate part, but which does not 
seem, in the case of man, to exclude the necessity of a course 
of experience, so to practise that association that it may become 
indissoluble and to give to the apprehension of distance the stamp 
of an immediate and simple act of sense. This is a classical 
instance of " psychical chemistry " (V. B, Sd), If we think that 
we immediately "see" distances, it is only in the same sense that 
we *^ see " joy immediately in a man's countenance. 

7. (a) In respect also of superficial extension, the attempt has 
been made to explain the apprehension of space through asso- 
ciation of visual sensations with representations of touch and 
movement. What is immediately apprehended would then be com- 
posed of sensations of a certain quality, and the apprehension of 
space would result from the fusing of these with certain representa- 
tions. It is natural to believe, and the belief is confirmed by obser- 
vations of new-born infants, that sight at first embraces only light 
and colours. The excitations which are clear and bright, but not too 
dazzling, are sought out and the endeavour made to retain them ; 
it is only later that the form of the object is apprehended.^ Through 
percepts and experiments made with touch and by the movement 
of one or several organs, the limits of individual objects come to be 
known to us. The language of the visual sense becomes perfectly 
plain only by means of sensations of movement and touch. On the 
other hand, sight, when once it has developed hand in hand with 
the above-named senses, plays quite the greatest part in our appre- 
hension of space. There now arises the question, whether the 
blind, who are confined to sensations of touch and movement, do 
actually have an intuition of space similar to that of persons with 
sight. We, who can see, conceive of space as a visible surface at 
a little distance from us ; but how can a blind man actually picture 
to himself space .^ — Here appears the real paradox involved in 
saying that space is a psychological product. For if the exclusion 
of the visual images leaves only a something which is not the same 
in kind as visible space, we shall not be able to say what space is 
in itself, since in this case no definition can be given which will 

1 According to Preyer(pp. 36, 41) (Eng. trans, pp. 42, 52), a child's seeing is in the first 
few days only an obscure sense of bright and dark. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 197 

serve for both the visual and the tactual space. There would 
then be no more natural connection between the visual space and 
the tactual space, than between the name and the things denoted 
by it. 

There is actually to be had a definite observation on this point. 
Ernst Platner writes in his Philosophischen Aphorisnien j^ "As 
regards the idea of space or extension acquired without sight, 
the observation and examination of a person blind from birth, which 
I have carried on for three weeks, have more than ever convinced 
me that the sense of feeling (touch) is in itself absolutely ignorant of 
what pertains to extension and space, and knows nothing of a local 
separation between things. I am convinced, in brief, that the sight- 
less man perceives absolutely nothing of the external world, except 
the existence of something acting, which may be distinguished from 
the feeling of self (general sensation) suffering it, and for the rest 
merely the numerical difference — shall I say of impressions or of 
things 1 In reality to the blind, time serves instead of space. Near- 
ness and distance mean to them nothing more, than the shorter or 
longer time, the smaller or greater number of feelings [sensations], 
which he requires, in order to get from one feeling [sensation] to 
another. The fact that the blind person employs the language of 
sight, may very well deceive, and did deceive me when I first 
began my investigations ; but in reality he knows nothing of things 
as outside one another, and (this especially I have observed very 
plainly), if the objects and the different parts of the body with 
which they come in contact did not make different kinds of im- 
pressions on the sensory-nerves, he would regard everything ex- 
ternal as one thing, that acts successively upon him, e.g.^ more 
strongly when he places his hand on a surface than when he 
lays a finger on it, more faintly still when he strokes a surface 
with his hand or passes the foot over it. In his own body he 
distinguishes between head and feet not in the least by distance, 
but merely by the incredible fineness with which he can recognize 
differences in the feelings [sensations] experienced in the one or 
the other of these parts, and also by time. In the same way he 
distinguishes the form of other bodies purely by the kinds of the 
feelings [impressions on the sense of touch], since, e.g.^ a cube, 
through its corners and sides, affects the sense of feeling (touch) 
differently from a sphere.'^ 

We have an approximation to the space-perception of the blind, 

1 Leipzig, 1793, p. 466, seq. 



198 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

when we try to find our way in a dark room. Only we have the 
advantage, that the visual space lies ready in the background, and 
may be brought to our assistance in the interpretation of the 
sensations of touch and movement. It is something similar when 
we concentrate attention on the tongue and — with the visual 
sensations as far as possible discounted — observe what apprehen- 
sion of space it affords us. For the tongue is like a blind man, and 
yet has an excellent acquaintance with its surroundings. 

{b) However, there still remains a possible way of maintaining 
the originality of the apprehension of space. Motor-sensations are, 
indeed, always successive ; but by means of the sense of touch we 
can receive several impressions simultaneously. In like manner 
several rays of light may fall simultaneously upon the retina. 
Now may not this afford the possibility of an immediate appre- 
hension of the excitations as arranged in space 1 It might seem 
even necessary to suppose this. For sensation of a colour really 
means sensation of a coloured surface ; if the coloured object 
were only a mathematical point, it would afford no excitation. 
Even if larger objects are apprehended only through movement of 
the organs of sight and touch, it might still be thought that small 
objects could be apprehended immediately, without successive 
process. There must be an immediate distinction between the 
impression of a shilling and that of a threepenny bit. The appre- 
hension of small surfaces would then be the minimum, to which 
" nativism," the theory which maintains the originality of the 
apprehension of space, would be reduced, the final stronghold from 
which it could not be expelled.-^ 

It cannot, of course, be denied, that we may receive and con- 

1 Cy. 'S>t\iTn.^i,Der Psychologische Urspruug der Ratitnvorstelltingi^^^ Th^VsychoXogxc?! 
Origin of the Idea of Space,") Leipzig, 1873, p. 56 — 71. — Professor Mahafify of Dublin 
gave an account, in a letter in Mind, 1881, p. 278, seq., of an interview with the blind 
man cured by Franz. This man, a doctor in Kingstown, declared that he saw and 
distinguished forms immediately after receiving sight, and that outlines and forms were 
as the sense of touch had led him to expect. Mahaffy regarded this as the testimony of 
a competent judge in favour of the originality of the power to distinguish form through 
sight alone. But neither this interpretation nor the facts of the case accord with the 
report of Dr. Franz given shortly after the operation, in Philosophical Transactions, 
(1841). As mentioned above, the patient perceived a cube as a square, and a sphere as a 
circle. When Franz begged him to describe the impressions which the objects made on 
him, he said that he noticed at once a difference between the cube and the square, but was 
unable to form the idea of a square or of a disk, until he had felt in his finger-tips a 
sensation, as if he really touched the objects {Phil. Trans,, 1841, i, p. 65). He had 
thus to make an actual translation of the language of the one sense into that of the 
other, before he could recognize forms. There remains in favour of nativism, only the 
fact that he at once noticed a difference in the forms. But even in this the experience of 
the sense of touch may have helped. His attitude towards the forms was not that of a 
consciousness without any experience ; not, that is to say, the attitude of the earliest 
ijonsciousness. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 199 

tinually retain a host of simultaneous sensations of light and 
contact, and that we perceive them immediately as arranged in 
space. On the other hand, it is not so certain that the earliest 
consciousness has the same perception. A great variety of 
simultaneous impressions will at first take effect rather as a col- 
lective mass, will yield one single chaotic sensation. And as the 
quality and the strength of the impression cannot be at once 
distinguished, so also the space-relation cannot be from the first 
apprehended in its own right, but would so to speak conceal itself 
in a higher degree of strength, or, to make use of Bain's expression, 
in a greater massiveness of the impression. The account quoted 
from Platner points in this direction, for it shows that only 
qualitative differences of impression induced the blind patient to 
recognize diverse phenomena distinct from self. Reference may 
also be made in this connection to Weber's experiments, which 
proved that the degree of warmth seems higher when the whole 
hand is immersed in warm water, than when the finger only is 
immersed. As it cannot be supposed that there is an innate idea 
of the difference between the fingers and the hand, this difference 
in strength would be at first the only thing apparent. 

A purely passive apprehension of simultaneously given im- 
pressions can only be momentary. The activity is at once 
excited, the eye moves along the surface, or the hand touches 
it. At once, then, simultaneity passes into succession, the in- 
tuition becomes discursive. We apprehend moving objects more 
quickly and easily than objects at rest, and when the objects do 
not move, we move relatively to them. Two successive excitations 
on the skin can be distinguished with a smaller distance between 
them than two simultaneous excitations. The lowest animals and 
new-born infants do not notice any simultaneous differences in 
their surroundings, while they can apprehend successive differ- 
ences (changes) {cf, p. 114). By movement things are discovered 
and apprehended, which would otherwise remain unnoticed. The 
first chaotic sensation will consequently be determined by a series 
of succeeding sensations, in which from the nature of the case the 
motor-sensations take a prominent place. 

It might even be maintained, that successive and discursive 
apprehension is a necessary presupposition of true apprehension of 
space. Space signifies a relation. By something being in space is 
meant, that it occupies a certain position in relation to other things, 
and that its several parts occupy certain positions relatively to one 



20O OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

another. Instead of speaking of space in general as an integral 
unity, it is better to make use of the more elementary conception 
" position." It is then apparent, that the apprehension of space 
rests on a comparison or a combination. It cannot therefore 
subsist as given from the first, but presupposes a certain psycho- 
logical activity. 

{c) It is not a matter of indifference, which part of the body 
meets with an excitation from the external world. As it is by 
successive experiences that we learn to know our own body, as 
well as the world surrounding us, it cannot be supposed that 
we can originally know or feel on which part an excitation lights. 
If, then, the excitations do, nevertheless, act differently on the 
different parts, this difference can appear to consciousness only as a 
certain shade, a qualitative side-determination of the sensation. 
The special character which the sensation receives, from the fact 
of the excitation lighting upon one single definite point, Lotze calls 
its local sign. The conditions are different at every point of the skin 
and of the retina ; there must therefore be a variety of local signs. 
As regards sight, these local signs may consist either in the motor- 
impulses, different for each point, which aim at turning the eye so 
that the excitation of light may fall on the yellow spot (Lotze), or 
in the different quality of the sensations at the different parts of the 
retina (Wundt). In respect of the sense of touch Lotze finds the 
local signs given in the different secondary sensations, which one 
and the same touch produces by reason of the difference in thick- 
ness and tightness of the skin and the different underlayers which 
it encloses at different points.^ 

Let us suppose that the excitation A falls upon a point in the 
retina at some distance from the yellow spot, and ^that it then 
attracts our attention. The eye will then be moved in such a way 
that A will fall upon the yellow spot. Answering to this move- 
ment, there will be a motor-sensation, which we shall call it. Now 
let A on another occasion fall upon a different point in the retina, 
and the motor-sensation which will be similarly occasioned, will 
also be different (A'). We may then compare A -{-it and ^ + A", 
and the conscious difference, resulting from the difference in the 
point on which the excitation has fallen, can now be apprehended. 
Again, if the excitation B falls upon the same point in the retina as 
previously A, it will be combined with the same motor-sensation. 

1 Lotze has given several accounts of his theory of local signs, the last in Grundzilge 
der Psychologic (1881). As regards Wundt, see Physiol. Psychol., 11, pp. 25^ 28^ 163 
(3rd ed. pp. 30-33, 191). 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 201 

Between A +7r and ^ + ^? there will then be found a likeness 
connected with the point in the retina concerned. — In this way a 
consciousness corresponding to the local relations is gradually 
framed.! 

These local signs can at first take effect only by successive 
apprehension. Consciousness cannot experience them all at once ; 
only after the whole series has been gone through, can each of the 
sensations with its local sign be assigned to its definite place. If 
their determination is to be perfect, therefore, the local signs must 
make up a connected system. Excitation of a single point on the 
skin or the retina may then lead to a determination of locality, with- 
out the whole series of local signs being gone through afresh ; 
for it is in this as in all cases where we have often gone through a 
series of different sensations or ideas, as the result of practice, the 
whole series comes at last to seem the object of an immediate 
intuition or of an intuitive knowledge (c:/. p. 163, seq.). 

8. But in spite of all this, the real apprehension of space is not yet 
explained. We have obtained a coherent group of motor-sensations, 
local signs, and sensations of light and contact, combined according 
to the laws of association. But no arrangement of all this is yet 
given, which would give rise to the intuition of an image, with its 
several parts placed one outside the other, and it outside our self 
(or rather outside the image of our organism) ; for all these sensa- 
tions were qualitative and intensive, not extensive.^ 

Here it appears that all theories of the apprehension of space are 
at a loss. The so-called " nativistic " theory regards the apprehension 
of space as given with the very first impressions.^ According to it, 
all psychological explanation of the development of the apprehen- 
sion of space is as superfluous as impossible ; the apprehension of 
space must be accepted as a priori. But the experiments quoted 
above (6, 7 a and b) seem to contradict this theory. Every imper- 
fection and every error in localization and apprehension of space 

1 Cf. my treatise on " Lotze's Doctrine of Space and Time," in PhilosoJ>hische Monat- 
sckr. (1888), p. 126, seq. The Swedish writer, Reinhold Geiger, had previously 
{Philos. Monatschr, 1888) pointed out gaps in Lotze's theory of local signs, which I 
endeavour to fill up in the way above indicated. [The above paragraph and note are 
inserted at Prof. Hofifding's request. (Tr.)] 

2 [C/1, however, the later recognition of "extensity" or " extensiveness " (Bain's 
" massiveness ") as a property of sensations, and the new turn consequently taken by 
the discussion. (Dr. Ward in Ency. Brit, vol. xx., Art. "Psychology," pp. 53-55, and 
Prof W. James's articles on the " Perception of Space," Mmd, 1887.) (Tr.)] 

3 The most important representatives of nativism are at the present day Stumpf, from 
the side of psychology (Z>^r /'j^'^,^!?/. Urspr. der Ra7imvorst.), Hering from the side of 
physiology (his last work is Der Raumsinn und die Bewegiingen des Aicges, Hermann's 
Handbuch, i\\, i). 



202 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

really contradict it, while they are to be explained very easily if 
the apprehension of space is itself a result of experience. For this 
reason the genetic theory regards space as a psychological product, 
caused by combination of intensive and qualitative sensations 
according to the general psychological laws of the association of 
ideas. But there still remains an unexplained residue, for the 
psychological product has a property not possessed by the ele- 
ments out of which it has arisen, that very property which gives 
rise to the problem, namely, the extensive form. The attempt 
has, indeed, been made to explain the transition from the apprehen- 
sion of successive stimuli to the intuition of the extended, by 
saying that the intuition of space forms of itself when it is 
indifferent from which end we begin the reproduction of a series of 
sensations ; for time has but one direction, space on the other hand 
several. Ultimately the whole series would be presented to us at 
once, wherever we might begin. But the utmost that we should 
arrive at in this way, would be simultaneity in time (co-existence) 
and not space. And a series of sounds may be repeated forwards 
and backwards, without being arranged as simultaneous — or as 
spatial. A transformation must therefore be admitted, a psychical 
synthesis, analogous to the chemical synthesis, out of which arise 
compound substances with properties not possessed by the ele- 
ments (cf. p. 163). In this synthesis the visual sensations play, for 
all who have sight, the most important part, and are the customary 
language into which the contributions afforded by the other senses 
are translated. — Whether a corresponding synthesis also takes 
place for the blind, with the sense of touch in the ascendant, seems 
from Platner^s account to be doubtful. 

Even if it were the case, that tangible and visible minima were 
apprehended as extended, it would still be necessary to postulate a 
synthesis. For our space-images are continuously, uninterruptedly 
connected ; but neither the retina nor the surface of the skin 
afford the basis of such a continuity. In the retina, there is even 
a point quite impervious to excitations of light, the " blind spot," 
where the visual nerve enters the eye ; but there is no similar gap 
in our visual image ; we thus involuntarily fill up the gaps in the 
series of the sensations. Every theory, therefore, which does not 
represent the apprehension of space as given from the first " at one 
stroke," must in some form or other call in the constructive power 
of consciousness. 

Such an appeal is not without its dangers. To a psychological 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 203 

conception, which finds the essential character of consciousness 
expressed in synthesis, in the bringing together into unity and con- 
nection (II. 5. V. B. 5), it might seem highly probable that this 
fundamental form should be repeated in the separate mental 
processes. But it is one thing to hit upon the true characteristic 
of consciousness as a whole, quite another to utilize the said 
characteristic as a deus ex machina in special psychological pro- 
blems. An opening might thus be easily afforded to arbitrary 
judgments ; into such a psychical synthesis anything might be 
read. For this reason Lotze sets to work with the utmost circum- 
spection, maintaining that his theory of local signs is not intended 
to explain the actual apprehension of space, but only the motives 
and aids of the mind when it gives shape to its spatial images. 
That the mind forms spatial images in the first instance out of 
certain of its sensations, Lotze regards on the other hand as a 
capacity which must be accepted as a fact, or as an impulse which 
is open to no further explanation. 

The genetic theory is then only in complete opposition to the 
nativistic, when it goes so far as to hold that all the conditions 
for the development of the apprehension of space are given in 
the experiences of the single individual. This view is, how- 
ever, improbable, on account of the unexplained residue which 
remains over, when we compare the elementary sensations with 
the fully developed apprehension of space. If in the synthesis 
to which this owes its definitive origin, we recognize the expression 
of a constructive power operating instinctively, then the question 
as to the origin of this power will refer us from the single in- 
dividual back to the system of nature within which it takes its 
rise. The experiences which cannot lead to the given end in an 
individual life-time, may during the evolution of the race have 
gradually led to such an accommodation of the organization that 
inherited dispositions supplement what is insufficient in the in- 
dividual experiences. The evolution hypothesis, first applied to 
this province by Herbert Spencer (1855), affords the prospect of 
tracing the problem farther back than was possible while psychology 
was confined to the experiences of the individual life. 

How close the genetic and nativistic theories may approach 
is to be seen from the fact that, while on the one side it is 
allowed that the immediately given knowledge of space may be 
infinitely small as compared with what is added by association, 
and that in the original sensations there is really given only a 



204 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

possibility of definite apprehension of space (Stumpf ), on the other 
side it is intimated that everything may be so prepared in the 
organism, that the time between the first excitation of hght on 
the retina and the origin of the idea of space may become infinitely 
small (Wundt).^ 

9. But whether the "nativistic " or the genetic theory is adopted, 
it remains a necessary presupposition for the apprehension of space, 
that a definite organic basis should be present. The conflict of 
theories concerns, or should concern, only the point, whether the 
functions conditioned by the organization come at 07ice into action 
or require a preparation and practice of a certain duration. 

To give the more exact account of the organic structures which 
are of importance to the origination of the apprehension of space, 
is the business of the physiology of the senses.^ Here reference 
will only be made, in addition to what has been already implied, 
to the importance of the central mechanism, which makes a close 
association between the sense-stimuli and the muscular movements 
of the sense organs possible. As regards the sense of touch the 
optic thalamus^ as regards sight the corpora quadrigemina^ seem 
to be the centres through which this association, and with it the 
physiological expression of the psychological synthesis, is accom- 
plished ; but the cerebrum probably plays a part also. 

The apparatus thus lying ready is perhaps able with some animals 
{cf. 6) to function immediately after birth, so that the experiences 
necessary to the apprehension of space are at once and easily 
gained. With human beings, as it seems, several months elapse 
before so much is attained. 

10. So far we have spoken of the actual form of space and of the 
faculty of intuiting spatial images. As to the idea of space^ as a 
general, or rather as a typical individual idea, this is evolved 

1 Stumpf, Der Psychologische Ursprung der Raitinvorstellung ("The Psychological 
Origin of the Idea of Space"), p. 114, seq.^ 184. — Wundt, PhysioL Psychol., ii., p. 164 
(srded., p. 207, seq.). Cf. also Spencer, Principles of Psychology ii., p. 203, seq. 

2 See in this connection, Panum, Sanserne og de Vilkaaruge Bevdgeher (" The 
Senses and Voluntary Movements "), pp. 234-238; and Wundt's very full account (ii., 
chaps. II & 13). — In the above investigations only the most important psychological 
points of view are taken into consideration. _ We must refer any one who wishes to enter 
into the special psychological and physiological questions opened up by the theory of the 
apprehension of space, to Wundt's work, where the whole material is to be found 
collected and critically treated. — The question whether the axioms of geometry are 
based on our faculty of intuition as determined by our organization, or whether with 
sufficient practice we could form an idea of, and clearly describe, space with other 
properties, comes under epistemology, not under psychology. From the -purely logical 
point of view, such a possibility cannot of course be disputed, but as a matter of fact, wp 
are restricted to our space as characterized by the axioms of Euclid's geometry, until 
our organization shall have sustained a change by accommodation to other conditions of 
existence. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 205 

in the same way as the idea of time (i — 3), by the attention being 
directed to the schema common to all individual spatial images, 
and to its possible expansion. At first the idea of space is limited. 
The patient operated on by Cheselden, could not picture to himself 
lines in space extending beyond the limits of his visual orbit. 
He knew that the room he was in was only part of the house, but 
could not grasp the fact that the whole house might look larger than 
the room. The power of applying the individual ideas symbolically, 
was still wanting. When this power is developed, it is discovered 
that no limits can be set to the subdivision or to the expansion 
of space, any more than of time. 

The infinity of space (as of time) signifies that every limit of 
space is accidental, and can be overstepped in imagination. 
Absolute space, all the points and parts of which are perfectly 
homogeneous and continuous and which has no space beyond it, 
is a mathematical abstraction without a counterpart in psycho- 
logical intuition. Psychological space is relative ; it presupposes 
certain points of reference as given, and its parts do not appear 
with strict continuity and homogeneousness. In our apprehension 
of space, we make always greater or smaller leaps (as, e.g.^ in 
letting the eye stray from one point to another), and the difference 
in content gives to each part of space a certain qualitative difference 
in our apprehension and intuition. 

D. — The Apprehension of Thi^tgs as Real. 

1. Sensations, ideas, and concepts are forms under which the 
cognitive elements of the conscious content appear and are 
arranged. We have traced this arrangement from its simplest 
stage in the interaction of sensations, up to its highest stage in 
the activity of thought and of imagination directed to definite 
problems. The governing laws were essentially the same 
throughout. The motive of the advance from an involuntary 
arrangement in the play of sensations and ideas to scientific 
thought and artistic imagination, lay in the criticism necessarily 
brought in with growing experience. Fresh differences and con- 
trasts require fresh activity, that the connection and the unity may 
be maintained and chaos overcome. The logical principles and 
the aesthetic rules, though it is not the business of psychology to 
lay them down, develop, nevertheless, according to natural psycho- 
logical laws and prove thereby their intimate connection with 



2o6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

human nature ; they do not make their appearance abruptly as 
something externally imposed. 

But here the question arises, how is it that, in the content of its 
sensations and ideas and in the connection given to this content 
by the activity of thought, consciousness recognizes a reahty in- 
dependent of itself? It does not follow, because our knowledge 
develops according to definite psychological laws of nature, that 
it leads to a reality. The phantasies of the insane and dream- 
images are equally subject to psychological laws, and for that reason 
we have often been able to employ them as aids in our inquiries. 
How, then, is it made manifest to consciousness, that it has in its 
content a reality and no dream ? Can some definite activity — 
perception or act of thought — be indicated, through which we are 
led to believe that we have before us a reality ? 

It is not only at the standpoint of highly developed conscious- 
ness that this question comes up. It is really incessantly presented 
from the very beginning of consciousness. It is not permitted to 
the individual to arrange his ideas as he likes. There is carried 
on a constant education through disappointments, which may be 
hard and painful {cf, V. B. 4). The first disappointment affords the 
first basis of the contrast between the possible and the real, or 
between dream and reality. — We are here recurring to this point, 
in order to carry the train of thought further. 

2. The impulse to movement, so early stirring in conscious 
beings, leads them involuntarily to make inroads into nature. 
They soon find, however, that their movements may not proceed 
unchecked. At certain points they encounter resistance, and in 
the sensation of resistance, of prevented movement, the individual 
finds a something foreign, something which is not itself — whatever 
else it may be. He may perhaps repeat the attempt to overcome 
resistance ; but in this he will never wholly succeed. Fresh barriers 
are always substituted for those set aside. 

Looked at in one way, every one of the special sensations is a 
sensation of resistance. Every physical excitation takes effect 
only when it reaches the outer surface of the organism, prin- 
cipally those parts of it, in which the receptivity for the special 
species of excitation is most developed (as the eye for rays of 
light, the ear for waves of air, etc.). But just on account of their 
delicacy, the special senses play no great part in the development 
of the belief in a reality. They co-operate, but presuppose a firm 
nucleus round which they may gather, and this nucleus is given in 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 207 

the sensation of a resistance against our movement. A being who 
had sensations of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch only, would 
lead as it were an ethereal existence, would stand outside the 
tangible reality. The very word object signifies resistance ; object 
is that which is thrown against us (or as in the German Gegen- 
standy which stands against us). 

Reliance can, however, be placed in no single percept, whatever 
it may be. We have seen that the percept is always complex, 
since in it fresh sensations blend immediately with memories. This 
contains the source of a multitude of illusions, which arise through 
false interpretation of the given sensations {B. ja). Perception is 
an attempt at interpretation ; but how is the correctness of the 
interpretation to be guaranteed .? Sensations may call up incorrect 
memories. Moreover, the brain may be put by processes within 
the organism in a state similar to that which arises when 
excitations reach it from the external world. There then result 
hallucinations, false sensations and percepts, which can often not be 
distinguished from normal sensuous percepts. Not only sight, but 
the other senses also, may suffer from such abnormal states. It is 
noteworthy, but accords with what has been observed above as to 
the relation between the sensation of resistance and the other 
sensations, that, while hallucinations of sight and hearing do not 
always lead to hallucinations of touch and resistance, these latter 
do on the contrary, as a rule, introduce hallucinations of sight and 
hearing.! And since sensations of resistance afford the strongest 
presumption of a reality, the hallucinations of resistance are the 
most disturbing and destructive to the mental health.^ 

The question is just this, how to distinguish in individual 
cases between mental health and mental disease. If the sensations 
of all the senses accord, and if the victim to hallucination at once 
and with great ingenuity answers all the objections which can be 
raised against his imaginary world, how is it to be decided who is 
right ? 

Single sensuous percepts cannot decide the question. They 
may every one, taken alone, rest upon illusions or hallucinations. 
The only possible mode of decision is by looking to the con- 
nection among the various sensuous percepts. The several points at 
which sensation of resistance (to keep to this) makes its appear- 
ance, are not isolated, but appear in reciprocal connection. The 

1 Brierre de Bolsmont, Des Hallucinations, 3rd ed., p. 507, seq. 

2 Cf. E. Kraepelin, uber Trugwahrneh^nungen ("On Illusive Perceptions"), Viertel- 
jahrsschr. fiir iviss. Phil., v., p. 365. 



2o8 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

individual has then the problem given, to arrange his ideas in 
accordance with this connection. If he does not find the proper 
arrangement, he will encounter resistance, and finally suffer practical 
disappointment or pain. Supposing that the right arrangement of 
the ideas, as things were, is found, but that it conflicts with new 
experiences, then doubt arises as to the accuracy of the first 
percepts. If doubt does not arise, and if the intercourse with the 
external world is continued, a sure destruction follows. It is for 
this reason that children and the insane are removed from the 
struggle of life ; they are not in a position to correct their ideas by 
experience. 

The real is that which we apprehend as real, — which in spite of 
all effort to the contrary we must ultimately leave as it is, — 
which we cannot but recognize. This " can't help '' is a negative 
and subjective criterion, and there can be no question of any 
other. To the dreamer his dream is reality ; on awaking he 
discovers that the dream was only illusory reality, conditioned by a 
more comprehensive reality and finding its explanation within this. 
So far as we can go in dreams without encountering sharp con- 
tradictions and contradictory experiences, to that extent we believe 
in the reality of the dream. There arrives a point, however, when 
the threads give way. Even the most systematic of dreams is but 
a fragment as compared with the totality into which progressive 
experience conducts us. In this way all of our ideas which have not 
their root in reality are corrected ; sooner or later their limita- 
tions will appear, and it will be discovered that there are more 
things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. 

In this way the knowledge of each individual has its con- 
summation in a complete image of the system of which he is a 
link. The individual's own powers cannot, however, effect much in 
this respect. He cannot correct all his illusions if he depends on 
himself alone. Equally little can this be done by the individual 
nation and the individual age. The pictures of the universe 
formed by the several individuals, nations, and ages, conflict in turn 
among themselves, and in this conflict man's conception of the 
universe is slowly evolved to greater clearness and certainty. The 
psychology of the individual leads here partly to the psychology 
of races, partly to the history of all the sciences. 

This does not determine whether the end can be reached at all. 
Before we touch upon the large problem to which this gives rise, we 
must call attention to an important concept, to which the preced- 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 209 

ing inquiry has brought us, and of which this is the place to state 
the psychological basis. 

3. The evidence of reality is given, then, according to the results 
we have just reached, in the firm connection of the percepts. We 
can never therefore be so strongly convinced of single percepts, of 
the reality of single things and occurrences, as of connected series 
of things and occurrences. The more there is "method in our 
madness,'' the more dangerous it is. 

The firm bond by which things and events are brought into the 
system of the real, we call the causal relation. We assume a 
causal relation, wherever we discover that two phenomena are 
linked together in such a way that the one unavoidably makes its 
appearance when the other is given. 

According to the popular conception of the causal relation, one 
thing is the cause, another thing the effect. The difficulty which 
might be found in things, supposed to exist independently, having 
yet so much to do with one another as must be the case with 
cause and effect, is from this standpoint easily overcome. A 
creative or constraining power is attributed to the thing called 
the " cause." The causes are personified, have ascribed to them 
something analogous to the personal exertion of will. 

David Hume was the first to make the popular conception of 
causality a subject of thorough criticism. What do we really 
mean — he asks — when we say, one thing is the cause of another ? 
If it is replied that the cause produces the effect, then what 
do we understand by " producing '^ ? Can an explanation of this 
be given which means anything but — causation ; so that we 
again move in a circle ? — But if it is said that the causal relation is 
only a necessary connection between two things, how is this 
necessary connection to be proved.^ Not by way of inference. 
All our distinct ideas may be kept separate, and it is quite 
easy for us to picture an object one moment as not existing, the 
next as existing, without any idea whatsoever of a cause or a 
creative principle being required. If we look at the things each for 
itself, no one of them necessarily presupposes another. Nor can 
we come to the causal concept by way of experience. We see the 
one phenomenon exist at the same time as the other or follow 
after it, but we do not see it follow the other. The production or 
causation itself we do not see. — The firm connection postulated 
between two th'ngs, which are called cause and effect, does not 
itself belong to these objects. The necessity exists only in con- 

P 



2IO OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

sciousnesSj not in the things. But what can that be which unites 
our ideas in such a way? This is in itself just as mysterious as 
the union between the objects. The only possible explanation is 
this, that repeated experiences create a habit, an instinct, a dis- 
position, to pass from an idea to other ideas with which it is usually 
combined. This subjective impulse, which we experience in the 
course of our ideas, we then anthropomorphically ascribe to nature.^ 

Hume disposed of the popular notion by carrying its assumptions 
to their ■ legitimate conclusion. His criticism was based on the 
supposition that something distinct from the effect is the cause. 
This isolation of the several members of the causal relation stands 
in close connection with his psychological theory, which conceives 
consciousness as a sum or series of independent ideas (see B. 5). 

Instead of saying with Hume, that we cannot see in a thing or 
infer from our conception of it that it is the cause or the effect of 
another thing, we must on the contrary maintain that we only know 
a thing at all in so far as it is cause or effect. Things are always 
given to us as members of a system. If they are taken out of this 
system in which they live, move, and have their being, it seems 
indeed wonderful that they have anything to do with one another. 
Hume says, a thing remains always the same, whether it is a cause 
or not. But the thing which is a cause, i.e. from which a change 
proceeds, must be in a state different from that in which it would 
be if no change were determined by it. It cannot bring about a 
change without being itself changed. Instead of starting with the 
idea of independent things and marvelling over the causal relation, 
it would be more reasonable to start with the causal relation and 
to marvel over the independent things. 

Hume saw plainly the connection between the theory of the 
causal concept and the psychology of cognition. *' The uniting 
principle among our internal perceptions," he says (I. 3, 14), "is 
as unintelligible as that among external objects.^^ If Hume's 
psychology were corrected, his theory of causality would sustain a 
corresponding correction. 

Difference and contrast are conditions of the existence of 
phenomena (^ II. 5 and V. A. 5). But, on the other hand, whatever is 
new and varied excites astonishment and sets in motion our cognitive 
impulse. While things or phenomena are presented to us as 
in all respects different, they are not intelligible. We then exert 
ourselves to get rid of the difference and the contrast, by tracing 

1 Treatise on Human Nature^ book i., part 3, sects. 3-14. 



v] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 211 

the new phenomenon back to one that is familiar, and showing 
how it is its continuation or conversion in another form. When 
it appears that the phenomenon B inevitably succeeds the 
phenomenon A^ we are then really learning to know A from a new 
side. While we confine ourselves to mere perception, A and B ap- 
pear to be quite different things. The thunder-cloud and the flashes 
of lightning have absolutely no points of resemblance to our per- 
ception. But the more we can penetrate into the relation between 
the two phenomena, the more we discover a continuous system 
which embraces both. The lightning, that phenomenon occurring 
so suddenly, and so strongly contrasting with the dark cloud, is 
only a continuation (a discharge) of the electrical current already 
passing in the clouds ; this current makes the air glow as it flashes 
through it. The continuity extends yet farther, for the atmosphere, 
even when no thunderstorm threatens, always contains more or 
less electricity. The sudden phenomenon is thus only a special and 
concentrated form of a something that is at work to a lesser degree 
at every instant. Cause (in the example given, the electricity of 
the air or the clouds) and effect (the flash of lightning) are thus 
presented as members or stages of one and the same process ; and 
when we trace back from the differences given in perception to a 
more comprehending system, we find the identity behind the 
differences. 

The connection between the relations of identity and causality 
appears also in the fact that when the same thing and the same 
relations are given, we expect the same effects. This expectation 
Hume explained as the mere result of a habit, and Stuart Mill, who 
starts from the same premises as Hume, was similarly unable to 
find any other reason for it, than that it has arisen from the 
generalization of a very large number of experiences. It is, how- 
ever, clear that if the same thing and the same relations are really 
given, the same effects must follow, the effect being nothing else 
than the way in which the nature of the thing and of the relation 
finds expression. If the effect were something quite distinct and 
different from the cause, then the proposition, hke causes Hke 
effects, could indeed be based only upon habit and collective 
experience. Certainly it is often difficult, if not impossible, to 
establish the extent to which relations and things are really the 
same. Scientific work has to a large extent for its aim, to establish 
by measuring, weighing, and counting, what is really given, or, as 
it has been put, " to describe things in all respects numerically." 

P 2 



212 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

The nature of the causal relation may, then, be expressed by 
these two main propositions : (i) Cause and effect are members 
of one and the same process, parts of one and the same whole ; 
(2) like causes have like effects. 

Now what of the proposition, that every phenomenon has a 
cause ? 

A close affinity has been shown between the relation of identity 
and that of causality. A corresponding affinity exists between the 
principle of identity^ the highest law of thought, the validity of 
which is the pre-supposition of all inference and consequently of 
all proof (B. 11), and thQ principle of causality ^ which requires the 
firm and inevitable connection of real phenomena, and the 
validity of which is the pre-supposition of all explanation of 
nature. The principle of identity might, however, hold good, 
even if the principle of causality did not. We should then be able 
to classify and draw conclusions, but should not be in a position 
to explain the origin of the different phenomena. The principle of 
causality shows us the way in which, in accordance with the 
nature of our cognitive faculties, we must look for the reason of 
the real phenomena. It is a special kind of proof, but cannot 
be deduced a priori from the general principle of proof. 
Both principles are derived from one and the same fundamental 
property of our thinking and cognitive consciousness ; the same 
activity, searching for similarity and unity, finds expression in both 
principles. They set the problems for our research, conformably 
with the nature of our cognitive faculties. 

As a principle of knowledge, the causal principle contains a 
problem, a postulate, but does not in itself justify any assertion as 
to how far the problem can be solved and the postulate satisfied in 
actual experience. Kant, without further preliminaries, founded 
the law of causality upon the principle of causality, and conceived 
this law, the proposition that every phenomenon has a cause, as 
an a priori law of nature, because, as he held, all experience (as 
distinct from dream and illusion) pre-supposes it. The question is, 
however, (as Maimon already urged against Kant), how far we really 
have experience in this sense : namely as necessary connection 
among phenomena. 

It may even be maintained that we can never obtain absolute 
corroboration of the law of causality by experience. The causal 
principle sets up an ideal, which can never be fully reahzed in our 
cognition. 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 213 

In the first place, experience can show us no absolute continuity. 
In every course of development to which we can point, there are 
gaps, variations unexplained. Anyone who wishes to deny the 
real validity of the causal law, will find no lack of material. In 
fact this material is even constantly added to ; for when we have 
explained the transition from A to B by indicating C as the middle 
term, we are left with two new questions in place of the one 
which we have answered, namely : how may the transition from 
A to C, and the transition from C to ^5 be explained ? The farther 
science advances, the more numerous are the riddles it finds and 
creates ; continuity is an ideal that can only be approximately 
realized. 

In the second place, experience shows us also no absolute 
repetition. There are always collateral circumstances and de- 
grees : quite the same situation never comes again. This is par- 
ticularly true of organic, psychological and historical phenomena, 
on account of the complex and complicated conditions under which 
they make their appearance ; but even in the inorganic province 
it is only approximately possible to estabhsh the identity of 
the conditions in different cases. So that repetition also is an 
ideal. 

In the third place, the series of causes is infinite, in the same 
sense as time and space are infinite. It is always an accidental 
or arbitrary point, at which we bring our inquiry to a close. 
According to the causal principle, every cause is in its turn effect. 
Though we are obliged even in our boldest hypotheses to come to 
an end at a certain point, yet the limit is only one of fact. We 
always leave off with a mark of interrogation. 

In the strictest sense therefore no single phenomenon is com- 
pletely explained. On the other hand, the principle of knowledge 
that could not be at least approximately confirmed by experience, 
would contradict itself. We should share the fate of Tantalus if 
we were condemned to inquire without ever being able to find. And 
as Tantalus would soon die of hunger and thirst, so our postulate 
of causality, like every useless organ, would die of atrophy, 
even if under such circumstances it were psychologically possible 
at all. 

Now in fact continuity and rhythm are exhibited in nature; move- 
ments and processes lead from link to link (even when we cannot re- 
construct all the intermediate links), and have a periodic character. 
And if we cannot bring the series of causes to a conclusion, 



214 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

we can at least work through a great stretch, as far as our view 
extends. A relative proof of the causal principle is contained, 
indeed, in the bare fact that there is such a thing as exact ex- 
periential science, however great or small the range of its results. 
To this extent the causal principle is not merely a postulate, but 
also a result. 

From the psychological point of view we may add, that in a 
world of purely absolute differences, a world where consequently 
the law of causality would not hold, conscious life, as we know it, 
would not be possible. Neither perception (V. B, i) nor self- 
consciousness (V. B. 5), nor association of ideas (V. B. 8), nor 
logical thought (V. B. ii) would be possible, if there were no 
rhythm and no continuity in the sensations, through which the 
content of existence announces itself in consciousness. 

4. The full development of the causal concept belongs to the 
philosophical theory of knowledge, not to psychology. In what 
precedes, we have overstepped the limits between these two 
departments. We now turn back to the psychological province, 
in order to inquire into the psychological origin of the causal 
concept. With regard both to motive and to form, the causal 
concept proceeds originally out of a practical interest. 

It is only at an advanced stage that men take an interest in the 
system of nature, apart from its power of serving their ends. The 
instinct of self-preservation first leads to the knowledge of the 
external world ; need teaches thought, as it teaches prayer. The 
knowledge which cannot be immediately utilized, is not needed. 
A missionary, who narrated to an Indian the story of the creation, 
received for answer : " My father, our grandfathers and our great- 
grandfathers were wont to contemplate the earth alone, solicitous 
only to see whether the plain afforded grass and water for their 
horses. They never troubled themselves about what went on in 
the heavens." ^ And even later, science and knowledge are means 
by which man adapts nature to his ends. Thus, Bacon, the 
prophet of modern natural science, and of industrialism, says : 
" The knowledge and the power of man coincide, because ignor- 
ance of the cause makes it impossible to produce the effect. For 
we can only conquer nature by obeying her. And that which in 
investigation is presented as the cause, in action appears as the 
rule." 2 The cause is thus originally the means, a by-path which 

1 Lubbock, Origin of Civilization, 5th edition, p. 385. 

2 Novnm 0?'ganon, i. 3. 



v] THE I^SYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION Si^ 

must be taken if the end is to be attained. It is only in pure 
instinct that an obscure impulse immediately produces action. 
Reason (in the widest sense of the word) is raised above instinct 
by the fact, that with the impulse is united an idea of that which 
must first take place before the impulse can be satisfied. In this 
idea of an indispensable middle term, we have the germ of the 
conception of necessity and of the causal concept ; and when this 
idea obtains a comprehensive content, and becomes the object of 
independent interest, the causal concept comes to be emancipated 
from the concept of the end. 

Closely connected with the originally practical motives deter- 
mining the causal concept is the original form in which it is 
apprehended. From its close connection with the nature of con- 
sciousness, the causal concept is to be found at all stages of human 
development ; but the cause may be sought in very different 
directions. What will be regarded as a good and valid cause at the 
several stages of mental development, depends entirely on the 
standpoint. When an Australian native sees one of his tribe die 
without having been shot or having met with any other external 
injury, he concludes that witchcraft must have been practised, and 
in order to discover who has slain his comrade by witchcraft, he 
goes in the direction in which the first insect seen leads him 
from the scene of death ; and the first person he then encounters 
must be the murderer.^ Given his premises, this is valid, rational 
thought. And that similar premises are in a measure held even at 
the present day may be seen from the fact that millions of people 
in the most highly civilized countries ascribe the so-called spiritua- 
listic phenomena to the influence of spirits.^ While the gods of 
mythology or similar beings are accepted by consciousness as 
realities, they provide a capital and easy means of satisfying 
the desire for causahty. From such a standpoint this is easily 
satisfied without further preliminaries. When the imagination has 
gone back a couple of steps in the series, it requires a rest 
and draws the conclusion. The Greeks regarded the gods as 
the creators of natural phenomena (at any rate, of all important or 
obvious phenomena). But whence did the gods come ? This 
question Hesiod answers in his T/ieogo/ty, where he describes how 
the dynasties of the gods were gradually evolved out of chaos. 

1 Fr. Miiller, Allgerneine Ethnographie, 2. Aiisg. Wien, 1879, p. 214. 
*^ Cf. Girard de Rialle, La Mythologie Comparee, Paris, 1878, i., chap. 14. Le 
Fetichisme chez les Peicples Civilises. 



2i6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

But he did not ask whence chaos came, although he expressly 
declared that it began to be. ('' First of all chaos began to be." 
V. 1 1 6.) From the mythological to the scientific account of nature 
is a continuous series of stages. The anthropomorphic form is 
sacrificed as more and more intermediate links become necessary, 
the more the conviction grows that these links are independent of 
personal caprice. The scientific causal concept is characterized by 
this, that the explanation of a natural phenomenon is found in its 
reduction to a set of other natural phenomena. Nature is explained 
by itself, not by something outside it. The observer who is skilled 
in medicine inquires in a case of sudden death into the constitution, 
mode of life, descent, etc., of the dead person. He perhaps finds 
in the autopsy, a stoppage (a clot of blood) in one of the arteries, 
and then explains the death, either as the result of an inhibited 
supply of blood to the brain, or through stoppage of the heart. In 
this way he forms the image of a connected process, in which link 
follows link ; the mysterious and sudden phenomenon is then 
presented as the natural conclusion of this process. 

5. There is another epistemological question which may be raised 
here, since it stands in close connection with the psychology of 
cognition, that, namely, of the limits of our knowledge. 

The study of sensations proves them to be subject to the /a7i/ of 
relativity^ since a sensation is, in respect of its existence and its 
quality, determined by its relation to other sensations. A corre- 
sponding law holds good for our ideas and concepts. These also 
are relative, /.^., they express relations, and consequently have 
validity only for what may be apprehended as the member of a 
relation. Our knowledge attacks an insoluble problem when it 
tries to grasp something which from its nature cannot stand in any 
relation to something different from it — something therefore that is 
absolute and self-contained. 

A brief examination of our most important concepts will make 
it clear, that the law of relativity holds good not only for sensations, 
but also for ideas and concepts. 

{a) It has been shown that comparison is the fundamental form 
of cognitive activity at all stages of development : in the inter- 
action of sensations, in perception and association of ideas, just as 
much as in logical thought and in the search after material causes. 
But that which is to be an object of comparison must be confronted 
with something else, either similar to or different from it. That 
which has nothing outside it — or rather, which has nothing besides 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 217 

ipraeter) itself — cannot be either assimilated or understood by 
our faculty of cognition.^ 

ip) All proof is from several given premises. From a single 
principle or a single premise nothing can be inferred — any more 
than from several absolutely different principles. Thus our know- 
ledge can never be inferred from a single premise ; it arises through 
combination of several given premises. If A = B is given and 
nothing more, I am not led a single step farther. But if on the 
contrary B = C is given too. then I conclude A = C. And if I 
wish to get beyond this result again, I must find a new premise 
which I can combine with it — and so on. 

(c) Time and space are in reality always relative. Every deter- 
mination of time and space presupposes a certain starting-point 
as constant. This point is, however, always arbitrary ; it must be 
itself determined through other starting-points, and so again ad 
infinitum, 

{d) That the causal concept expresses a relation, needs no proof. 
The causal series forms, from a logical point of view, a parallel to 
the temporal series, and to the several dimensions of space : every 
phenomenon which in a certain connection is presented as cause, 
from another side is effect, just as that which, regarded from the 
one side, is past, has been, regarded from the other, future, or as 
that which from one position is on the left, from another is on 
the right. With this relativity is connected the infinity {i.e. the 
indeterminateness) of time, of space and of the causal series. 

(^) Finally, all knowledge rests on the relation between the 
knowing subject and the object known : the objects of knowledge 
exist for us only through a series of sensations which are elaborated 
by activities of thought ; and the object can be known only as it 
exists for us. — This gives rise to the question, in what sense, then, 
is our knowledge irue^ if the aspect in our eyes of the object known 
is always determined by our mental organization ? 

The popular answer to the question as to what makes the truth of 
our knowledge, is : " our knowledge is true when it accords with 
reality.^' But how are we to determine this 1 We only know reality 
through our sensations and ideas. — Because of our sensations we 
attribute to objects certain qualities (light and darkness, colour, 
sound, warmth, cold, smell and taste, etc.). But these qualities do 

1 This point of view has in our day been especially insisted on by Sir William 
Hamilton and Herbert Spencer. But Spinoza had already been obliged to enter a 
protest against it. Kurzgefasste Abhandhing, i., 7. 



2i8 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

not belong to the objects themselves ; they are a language in which 
we describe them according to the way in which they affect our 
organism. Purely physically, colours consist only of oscillations 
propagated — perhaps through an extremely fine substance, the 
ether — from the objects to us ; sound consists of waves of air, etc. 
If there were no eyes and no brain, the light, as we experience it, 
would not exist. We do not really, then, have sensations of things? 
but our sensations correspond to the condition produced in our 
brain when effects are transmitted to it from the object. Even the 
sensation of resistance does not take us farther than this ; we 
always measure resistance by our own exertion of force ; we cannot 
experience what it is in itself. Also out of reach are the spatial 
relations, in which objects (among which may here be reckoned the 
organism, including the brain) make their appearance. We know 
spatial relations only through intuition of space, and intuition of 
space is a psychological activity. For whether we adhere to the 
"nativistic '' or the genetic theory, the intuition of space belongs to 
the subjective forms, in and through which objects are given to us 
and without which we should know nothing of them. — And what 
applies to the qualities applies also to " the objects themselves " ; 
for we form the idea of an object through association of the ideas 
of its qualities. And as it is impossible to apprehend anything 
about an object except through sensations and ideas, so it is im- 
possible to think anything about the object except through ideas 
and concepts. In order to make use of the popular criterion for 
the truth of our knowledge, we should need to get behind our own 
consciousness and to be able to compare the object with the image 
or notion, which we have of it in consciousness : but this is im- 
possible, for it is self-contradictory. 

Ordinarily we are not pulled up by this difficulty, because we 
are always occupied with the reciprocal play of our ideas 
and sensations. When we say that we correct our notions by 
comparison with "reality,^' we mean by " reality ^^ not something 
independent of consciousness, but only percepts more definite and 
comprehensive than those we have hitherto had. If, however, we 
take the sum of all our actual and possible sensations and ideas, 
and ask, how are they related to reality, we reach the limits of our 
knowledge. We cannot directly disprove the teaching of Berkeley, 
Fichte, and Stuart Mill, that the not-self, the sum of all the 
hindrances to our action and of all the objects of our cognition, is 
a product of a mental activity of which we are unconscious. We 



V] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION 219 

cannot therefore, to put the thing in an extreme light, know 
that life is not a dream, a great, connected, and consistent dream. 
Or, more accurately, the contrast between dream and reality would 
here cease. 

The epistemological significance of the theory of subjectivity 
rests upon its energetic insistence, that an account must be given of 
the source of the traits with vvhich we endow reality. But it becomes 
itself dogmatic when it maintains that our consciousness produces 
its whole picture of the universe from itself. 

Such an absolute production would in fact be contrary to the 
law of relativity {cf. b). There must be something given, which 
determines, or serves as a motive for, consciousness in the pro- 
duction of the definite picture of the universe. This picture finds 
reason and explanation only when we postulate an x outside the 
subject, whose influence on the subject stirs up and determines its 
cognitive activity. What this x is, no experience can tell ; every 
answer to this question is a metaphysical hypothesis.^ — That our 
cognition presupposes in this way something which can never be 
subjected to its manipulation is closely connected with the fact, that 
it must always have something as given, — that at every point it is 
not only active but also passive, although on the other hand an 
absolute passivity is only an extreme case, which cannot be pointed 
to in experience {cf, p. 117). — 

If, then, it proves impossible to apply the popular definition of 
truth as agreement of knowledge with reality, since reality itself 
exists for us only through our knowledge, we must seek the 
criterion within, and not without, the world of consciousness. It 
can, then, be nothing else than the inner harmony and consistency of 
all thoughts and experiences {cf. 2). If we cannot escape from 
the dream, we can at least (as Calderon desires in Life a Dream) 
"live well in the dream,^^ which in this connection means, 
that we can always extend the sphere of our experiences and 
thoughts and can establish a deeper and firmer connection between 
them. It is only the single and immediate phenomena of our own 
consciousness of which we have a direct and immediate certainty. 
As soon as we have to do with complex phenomena, the only 
possible criterion of reality is in the firm causal connection. This 
holds good of internal, mental reality as well as of external, 

1 The subjective systems have, as a rule, assumed an jr, and propounded, in accordance 
with their other assumptions, some hypothesis as to its nature. {Cf. especially Berkeley 
Fichte and Schopenhauer.) 



220 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [v 

physical reality. This practical validity of the criterion of reality 
is quite independent of the question whether the subjective theory 
is correct or not.^ Our knowledge must always, from the nature of 
the case, bear both in form and content the impress of our mind 
and be confined by its limitations. But this does not deprive 
knowledge of either its validity or its value. If there be a truth 
higher than that attainable by human knowledge, the truth known 
by us is a part of it. In availing ourselves of the means and the 
standard which are given us by the nature and the organization 
of our mind, we can therefore really advance in the knowledge of 
objective truth. 



1 Cf. the treatise of Leibniz : "De modo distinguendi phaenomena realia ab imagln- 
ariis " {Opera Philosophical ed. Erdmann, p. 442, seq.). 



VI 
The Psychology of Feeling 

A. — Feeling and Sensation 

I. In opposing feeling to cognition, we do not, as already- 
explained, postulate any opposition between different faculties or 
powers of mind. The psychological distinctions concern only the 
elements out of which the psychical states, as appears on closer 
observation, are compounded, and it has been already shown with 
what right we distinguish in every psychical state between elements 
of feeling and elements of cognition. It was seen to be impossible 
to derive all forms of conscious life from a state of pure feeling (IV. 
7, c) : although elements of feeling greatly preponderate at the 
primitive stage, yet close observation revealed the presence of 
cognitive elements. — It now remains to exhibit the laws and ways 
by which the higher forms of the life of feeling develop out of 
the elementary feelings accompanying the immediate sensations. 

The attempt has been made to deny absolutely that any such 
development takes place. As in the province of cognition there 
has been a disposition to draw a sharp contrast between sensuous 
perception and thought, so it has been conceived a degradation of 
the higher, ideal feelings, that they should be related with the 
primitive feelings. Hence an ethical valuation was unjustifiably 
made to determine the psychological conception. As an instance 
of this tendency we may cite Nahlowsky's work, so admirable in 
other respects, Das Gehfilhlsleben (1862). This psychologist, of 
the Herbartian school, distinguishes between the way in which 
sensations determine our general organic state, and the way 
in which internal movements and stirrings of our ideas affect 



222 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

us. The latter affection only will he consent to call feeling. 
Sensations, he says, have indeed their peculiar " tone/' but 
this concerns only the bodily state, not the mind. It is here 
seen how a spiritualistic theory of the relation between mind and 
body may prejudice a special psychological question. According 
to Nahlowsky, physical pain is a " sensation " which is conveyed 
to the mind from the body, while mental pain, on the contrary, is a 
real " feeling," an expression for the actual internal condition of 
the mind during the interaction of ideas. The sensations are 
consequently explained through the relation between the mind and 
body, the feelings through the relation of the ideas to one another. 

In answer to this it must be remarked, that every feehng, 
whether high or low, is characterized by the strong contrast between 
pleasure and pain. These two poles make themselves felt as far 
as the life of feeling extends, and the first mark, by which to 
indicate the nature of a feeling, is its pleasurableness or painful- 
ness. The fact of this contrast determines the special character of 
the element of feeling as compared with the other elements of 
consciousness. Here, then, is something which is common to all 
feeling. — And all feeling must be meiital^ since a mental life 
only is immediately experienced by us as conscious life. The 
differences among feelings we must try to explain through the 
different cognitive elements which may be combined with them. 
The so-called physical pain, i.e. the pain which arises from im- 
mediate sensations, is less complex, and contains fewer and simpler 
cognitive elements than the so-called mental pain. Toothache 
is a simple, elementary feeling, while sorrow and repentance are 
feelings which involve ideas and memories. On the other hand, 
there is no reason to doubt that the higher feelings have their cor- 
responding physiological process just as much as the lower. The 
difference can only consist in this, that the central processes, 
passing in the brain, play a greater part in the higher than in the 
lower feelings, these latter being mainly determined by the effect 
of the individual impression. 

It is consequently possible that the " tone ^' of the sensation, or 
the way in which it immediately affects our frame of mind, may 
psychologically be a germ, out of which the higher feelings are 
developed. Before treating of this development, let us examine 
somewhat more closely the relation between the sensations and the 
feelings of pleasure and pain accompanying them. 

2. Feeling stands out plainly, as an element different from the 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 223 

actual sensation, in certain experiences, which prove that the pain 
caused by an excitation takes longer to be produced than the actual 
sensation, and that sensation may arise without corresponding 
feeling, and vice versa. 

According to Beau, from one to two seconds elapse between the 
sensation of touch and the feeling of pain, when a corn is hit with 
a stick. E. H. Weber found that if the hand is dipped in very 
cold or in very hot water, there is first of all a very strong 
sensation ; this then decreases, but only at once to increase again 
and to become painful. He finds something similar in the fact 
that when we are startled by a sudden clamour {e.g, by the sudden 
blast of kettledrums and trumpets after a pause in the music), an 
appreciable time elapses between the stimulus and the startled 
movement, and since the transmission of the excitation along the 
sensory and motor nerves occupies no appreciable time, he explains 
the phenomenon by supposing that cerebral activity is a condition 
of the rise of feeling. This slowness in production of the feeling 
of pain as compared with the sensation, is evinced in electric 
stimulation, in the pinching of the skin with forceps, and also 
under certain pathological conditions.^ 

In a discussion as to the relation between feeling and cognition, 
which was carried on by Horwicz and ' Wundt in the Vierteljahrs- 
schrift filr Wissenschaftliche Philosophie (3rd and 4th vols.), the 
first of these writers took as examples sudden blows and shocks, 
where the feeling of pain arises before the sensation. With very 
strong excitations, this may perhaps be the case ; but with ex- 
citations of moderate strength, it may easily be seen that Beau 
and Weber are right. I experienced this very plainly on one 
occasion, when, with my hand behind me, I took a couple of steps 
backwards and came in contact with a hot stove, which I had not 
imagined so close ; I then felt quite distinctly the sensation of 
touch before the feeling of pain. 

In order to be noticed, a pain must both spread and have a 
certain duration. Richet says even, that pain without memory and 
without radiation would be no pain at all {cf. p. 96). It is thus 
not of so simple a nature as the sensation ; probably it presupposes 
the subduing of a great resistance in the central nerve-organs. 

In certain cases the feeling of pain is arrested, while the sensa- 

1 E. H. Weber, in Wagner's Physiol. Handworterhuch, iil., 2, pp. 565-571. — Richet, 
Recherches Experhnentales et Cliniqties sur la Sensibilite, Paris, 1887, pp. 290-293. — 
Funke, Tastsinn und Gemeingefiihle., (Hermann's H andbtich, iii., 2, pp. 298-300.) 



t 



224 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

tion remains intact. After section of the grey substance of the 
spinal-cord, the part of the body situated below the section may 
be in any way ill-treated, cut, crushed, or burnt, without any 
evidence of pain. Stupefying drugs, cold, intoxication, and hypnotic 
sleep have the same effect. A patient who, while under chloro- 
form, had his leg amputated, was conscious of the operation indeed, 
but felt as though it were being performed on a wooden leg. After 
the battle of Eylau the operations performed were almost painless, 
because the cold was 10 degrees. Hypnotised persons feel no pain 
when their teeth are extracted. And just as there is analgesia 
(absence of pain) without anaesthesia (failure of the sensation of 
touch), so there may be anesthesia without analgesia {ancesthesia 
dolorosa^). By section of the posterior columns of the spinal-cord 
the sense of touch in the back is lost, while the sense of pain 
remains. 1 

The feeling of pain may be various in character. It may pass 
through a whole scale from mere irritation or numbness, pricking, 
itching {fourmillement) , up to genuine pain. The pains themselves, 
as immediately presented, are different. The feeling of weariness 
is different from the painful feeling of exhaustion and faintness. 
There are burning, cutting, pressing, pinching, and boring pains. 
According to some, these differences are not to be conceived as 
differences of kind, but depend on the different strength, extent, 
and duration of the pain. The differences mentioned, in the im- 
mediate appearance of the pain, afford, however, at once a proof, 
that in every state of feeling there are also cognitive elements. 
Regarded as feeling element, pain is simple and manifests no 
difference ; if differences are manifested, they must arise out of the 
sensations which accompany feeling. 

On account of its practical importance, the feeling of pain has 
been much more closely studied than the feeling of pleasure. In 
this latter there are no motives for keenly tracking its conditions 
and causes, while the feeling of pain at once sets us to work in this 
way. Perhaps the feeling of pain is also more plain and distinct 
than the feeling of pleasure. — It seems to be true of pleasure as 
of pain, that in itself it exhibits no differences of kind, but that the 
differences in the pleasurable feelings spring out of the sensations 
or ideas accompanying them. 

1 C. Lange, Rygmarvens Patologi{^'' The Pathology of the Spinal Cord"), pp. ii, 02, 
seq., HI.— Richet, p. 118 seq., 258 j^^.— Preyer, Die Entdeckung des Hy^notismus, 
p. 44. 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 225 

3, In the so-called physical pleasure and physical pain we un- 
doubtedly, then, have already cognitive elements besides feeling- 
elements, although the latter greatly preponderate. We will now 
cast a brief glance at the relation between these two kinds of 
elements in the province of the different senses. It will be seen 
that the senses may be arranged in a series, in which at the one 
end the feeling-elements have a decided preponderance over the 
cognitive, while at the other end there appears a more equal 
development of both kinds. 

{a) General se7isatio7i is marked by the absence in the individual 
sensations of definite and local character. They are lost in a 
general feeling of comfort or discomfort, which as it were con- 
stitutes the result in the brain of the excitations received from 
different parts of the organism. We have here a feeling of our 
existence in general, of the general course of the vital processes ; 
this feeling, which accompanies the general sensations, we call 
therefore the vital feeling. The property and quantity of the blood, 
the vigour of the circulation, the tension of the fibres (the tonicity), 
the abundant or scanty secretions of the glands, the relaxation or 
tension of the muscles (voluntary and involuntary), the quick or. 
laboured respiration, the normal or abnormal process of digestion 
— these all help to determine it, without any one of them having 
occasion to stand out alone. The general sensations constitute 
a chaos, which receives its stamp through the contrast between 
comfort and discomfort, and the special variations in which are, 
from the nature of the case, determined by some one organ play- 
ing an especially prominent part, without however being always 
expressly known to consciousness as the source of the sensation. 
On the contrary, it is characteristic of the general sensations, that 
they often " radiate," or are projected, to points quite away from 
the real seat of the cause. The state of the organ which is most 
prominent at the moment decides the general fundamental mood. 

This fundamental mood can be described only by certain general 
features, which stand in close connection with the easy and free, 
or checked and difficult, course of the vital process. Thus the 
feeling of freedom, security, and power, comes in contrast with the 
feeling of internal constraint, disquiet, anxiety, and feebleness. In 
the contrast between the feeling of power and the feeling of feeble- 
ness, the sensation of power and muscular sensations play plainly 
enough an important part. Even when we do not voluntarily 
expand our muscles, they are always in a certain degree of tension \ 

Q 



226 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

even quiescent muscles (in sitting, lying, etc.) are not absolutely 
slack, but partially contracted ; the masticator muscles always 
draw up involuntarily the lower to the upper jaw ; the upper eye- 
lid is always raised, etc. During sleep this " reflex-tonicity " or 
"the latent innervation," as it has been called, is diminished. The 
position of the body is then adjusted more according to the laws of 
gravity ; and yet there is a difference between the posture of the 
living and of the dead. How well we are able at any time to 
hold the body erect, depends naturally on the energy at our 
disposal at the moment ; and, quite apart from all ideas, there 
is an immediate feehng of pleasure or pain, according as we 
are or are not equal at the moment to the said task. — The 
feeling of ease and freedom is principally connected with the 
functions of respiration and aUmentation. Difficulty in breathing 
causes a feeling of painful disquiet and anguish. If the infant's first 
cry is called forth by urgent want of air, consequent on the inter- 
rupted placenta-circulation, life begins with anguish. A patient has 
often awakened with terror and in convulsions, because the breath- 
ing had almost stopped as soon as he fell asleep ; and the heart 
at the same time ceased to beat. Nightmare or the oppression 
which it causes, appears (according to Laycock) to be caused by 
the relaxation of the respiratory centres. Many disorders in the 
bowels induce the same feeling. It seems to the patient "as 
though in him Nature had suspended her activity." With nervous 
pains in the pit of the heart (cardialgy) may be combined — perhaps 
on account of disturbances of the circulation — a terrible feeling of 
anguish and weakness, which ranks these pains with the most 
terrible of all suffering. 

In this contrast between the feeling of power and freedom on 
the one side, and the feeling of weakness and anguish on the 
other, appears in its simplest and most elementary form the 
contrast, so important for all conscious life, between hope and 
fear. In mere vital feeling, no definite sensations or ideas as 
yet make themselves felt ; hope and anxiety as vital feelings are 
therefore still quite indefinite ; but their very indefiniteness and 
apparent lack of motive give them great power over con- 
sciousness. 

In their first stages, the feelings of hunger and thirst have the 

1 C. Lange, Rygmarvens Patologi {^* Tho. Pathology of the Spinal Cord "), p. 152, f^^., 
344, seg. — Panum, Nervevdvets Fysiologi (*'The Physiology of the Nerve Tissue") 
p. 106, seg. — Laycock, On the Rejlex Functions of the Brain {British and Foreign 
Medical Keview, 1845, vol. 19, p. 306). 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 227 

same vague character as the general feehng, manifest themselves 
as dissatisfaction, as disquiet. To this, however, are soon added 
definite local sensations, of oppression and gnawing in the stomach 
in hunger, of dryness and burning in the tongue and throat in 
thirst. We must here abstract from the appearance presented by 
these feelings, when definite ideas of their significance are linked 
with them, and when the habit has been formed of taking food at 
settled periods.^ 

{b) Sensations of touch and movement come so close to the 
general feelings, that they often enter into these without being 
independently presented, and, as in these, the strength of the 
excitation plays a greater part than its quality. If the strength, 
however, does not exceed a certain degree, these sensations are 
still fine enough to be associated with feelings of pleasure or pain, 
which, in comparison with the general feeling of organic well-being 
or discomfort, have a certain independence. In active movement 
a special satisfaction may be felt, and one kind or form of 
activity will be preferred to another, as one colour to another. 
There is a similar satisfaction in contact with soft and smooth 
surfaces, and a displeasure in contact with rough and hard 
surfaces, to which a certain aesthetic character may already be 
ascribed. A feeling of pleasure or pain may be called cBsthettc, 
if it is not (at any rate not immediately) produced by something 
that sets practical instincts and impulses to work. 

{c) Taste, again, comes close to general feeling. It is intimately 
connected with the function of alimentation, as a sort of test and 
measure of what is to be taken in and consumed. The feeling 
of satisfaction or of disgust, which, according to some, comes 
from that portion of the organ of taste which is situated on the 
back third of the tongue, has quite the character of a vital feeling 
determined by general sensation.^ But for all this, differences of 
quality have here a definite importance. Even new-born infants 
seem able to distinguish between the different qualities of taste. 
With each of these qualities (sweet, sour, bitter, salt,) are connected 
certain shades of feeling. These are indescribable in spite of all 
their simplicity ; but that they are present is evident from the fact 

1 This "psychical moment" (Ranke, Physiol, des Menschen, srded., p. 220) certainly 
plays a part also in the sensation of cold, for which reason the adult undoubtedly suffers 
more from cold than the child, who as yet associates with it no further idea. Perez, Les 
Trois Premieres Annies de V Enfant^ Paris, 1878, p. 8, seq. 

2 In disgust, again, we here abstract from the "psychical moment." For this feeling 
may arise by means of association of ideas from excitations which would not in themselves 
excite it. 

Q 2 



228 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

that we employ expressions from the province of taste to de- 
signate higher states of feehng. 

{d) Sensatio7is of S7nell exhibit in hke manner quahtative differ- 
ences, but these have not sufficiently attracted the attention for 
language to find for them special words. With animals smell 
plays an all-important part among the senses : by its aid the prey 
is scented, danger avoided and the sexes brought together. Nor 
has smell quite lost its deep significance among human beings. It 
is to the process of respiration what taste is to that of alimentation, 
and acts in immediate conjunction with the sensation of taste as the 
guardian of the alimentary canal. Like taste, it can immediately 
and instinctively excite pleasure and disgust, as a rule in the case 
of substances which are useful or injurious to the organism. But 
it can, in a much higher degree than taste, be freed from instinct 
and vital feeling, and become the source of aesthetic satisfaction. 

{e) The higher senses, sight and hearing, seem to be almost 
wholly emancipated from immediate connection with the vital 
feeling. And yet these also are originally only its vanguard. As 
smell and taste facilitate a pre-examination, which prevents any- 
thing injurious to life from being received into the alimentary canal, 
and as smell gives notice of the approach of the enemy or of the prey, 
so too sight and hearing are from the first in the service of instinct. 
As the sensation of taste is followed by the need of swallowing, so 
the sight of corn or of an insect arouses the impulse to pick it up 
in a chicken just hatched, or the clucking of the hen causes it to 
run hastily after the source of the sound. It is possible to feed and 
relish with the eyes. It is similarly due to instinct that all conscious 
beings, from the lowest to the highest, start with fear or with sur- 
prise at a sudden excitation of light or noise (as also at sudden 
contact). The phenomena here mentioned exhibit hope and fear 
in a somewhat more definite form than they have as con- 
stituents of the vital feeling. Here the sensations which excite 
the feeling are more definite and distinct, and do not so closely 
fuse with it as in the forms previously mentioned {a). 

What gives to the higher senses a freer attitude in respect of the 
vital feeling is, in the first place, their definitely marked scale of 
quality. So long as the strength of the excitation plays the chief 
part, the sensations fuse absolutely with the vital feeling proper. 
This is especially apparent at the extremes of pleasure and of pain, 
even when it is a question of purely intellectual and aesthetic feel- 
ings. The special forms of sound and shades of colour excite a 



vi] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 229 

finer play of feeling than the excitations which affect by their 
strength the processes concerned in the preservation of life. In 
the next place it is of importance, that excitations of light and 
sound in general are not among those which exercise a strong 
effect upon our body, and that there are in the sense-organs 
contrivances to subdue too violent excitations. 

In a developed consciousness so many secondary ideas are linked 
with colours and sounds that it is difficult to discover what effect upon 
feeling the elementary sensations have in themselves. In practice 
we avail ourselves of colours and sounds as a means of taking the 
bearings of things, we think not so much of them as of that which 
they signify. Their immediate effect is, as a rule, unconscious, 
and we pay attention to it only when the mood excited enters into 
a certain opposition to other moods.^ In order to feel these effects 
in their full speciality, Goethe used to look through coloured glasses, 
and in this way to make himself at home with the colour, to see 
the whole world green, yellow, etc. His remarks on the feeling- 
tones of colour are even yet classical.^ 

In the influence exerted on feeling by light and dark?tess we are 
reminded of the great contrasts in the vital feeling. It is certainly 
necessary to look farther back than the visual sensations to under- 
stand the great influence of light on all creatures that have sensuous 
perception. The influence of light is, as already touched upon 
(II. 3), a condition of the conversion of inorganic into organic 
matter. Light is thus one of the most elementary conditions of 
life. Plants turn to the light, and if light enters on more sides 
than one, they turn to the side where it is strongest. Light pro- 
motes metabolism in animals, more especially in the respiration ; 
even creatures without eyes breathe more quickly in a bright than 
in a dark atmosphere. That the influence of light upon the eye 
should promote metabolism is explained by some as due to a 
reflex action of the visual nerve upon the central organ of the 
vaso-motor nerves.^ The satisfaction taken in light and the dislike 

1 It has been told oi 2^ spirituel Frenchman that : " II pretendait que son ton de conversa- 
tion avec Madame etait change depuis qu'elle avait change en cramoisie le meuble de son 
cabinet qui etait bleu." Goethe Farbenleh7'e, § 762, 

2 Cf. also in respect of the influence of colours upon feeling : H. C. Orsted, To 
Capitler af det Skjonnes Nattcrldre (" Two Chapters from the Study of the Beautiful "), 
Copenhagen, 1845. — Fechner. Vorschule der ^sthetik (" Studies Preparatory to Es- 
thetics "), ii., p. 212, seq. — Lehmann, Farvernes EleJiientiire Astetik (" The Elementary 
Esthetics of Colours "), Copenhagen, 1884. — In Nahlowsky and Wundt also good 
observations are to be found. 

3 Cf. F. Papillon, La Licniiere et la Vie (in the work La Nature et la Vie., Paris. 
1874). — Landois, PJiysiologie dcs Menschen, 2 Aufl., p. 242,. — Panum, Nervevdvets 
Fysiologi {^''Vh.ys.iology of the Nerve-Tissues"), p. 160. 



230 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

of darkness therefore constitute even a part of the general vital 
feeHng, and the way in which at all stages of civilization men have 
associated light and life, darkness and death, testifies to a profound 
and constant experience. Other experiences besides the immediate 
general sensations have undoubtedly helped in this ; light brings 
with it security, while darkness favours foes and dangers. The 
real basis, however, does not lie in these associations. 

The pleasure in light has, however, yet another source, which is 
not, like that just mentioned, immediately derived from the instinct 
of self-preservation. The organ of sight, like every other, requires 
activity, and its natural, normal functioning is accompanied by 
pleasure, as appears to be the case with all normal functioning. 
When even the eyes of the new-born infant turn to the light, this 
is not wholly on account of the quickened process of metabolism, 
but also on account of the impulse to natural function. Dislike of 
darkness is therefore also the expression of an inhibited impulse to 
activity. 

Light does not, however, satisfy the eye. The visual organ 
desires to be filled with colours. " Let it be remembered,^^ says 
Goethe, " how our spirits revive when on a dull day the sun shines 
out over a single part of the landscape, and makes its colours 
visible. The attribution of medicinal virtue to coloured precious 
stones may have arisen out of the deep sense of this unspeak- 
able delight." The effects of colour on feeling are in part de- 
pendent on the degree of clearness — that is to say, the degree in 
which colours approach to white ; in part on their '' saturation ^' — 
that is to say, the degree in which colours approach the spectrum 
shades ; in part therefore on the achromatic, in part on the chro- 
matic element in sensation (see p. 104). The duration and the com- 
pass of the excitation are also of importance ; thus pain results 
from the too protracted or too extensive application of a stimulus, 
which if less extended (either in time or space) would afford 
pleasure. The greater the depth of colour, the smaller must be 
the extension, if a feeling of pleasure is to arise.^ 

In respect of the influence of the different colours upon feeling, 
Goethe had already demonstrated that colours may be divided 
into two classes, which he called the positive and negative, but 
which with Fechner we may perhaps rather call the active and 
receptive colours. The active colours — namely, purple, red, 

1 A. Lehmann, Farvernes elementdre j^stetik ("The Elementary ^Esthetic of 
Colours"), pp. 78-82. Cf. also Fechner, Vorschtde ("Preparatory Studies"), ii., 
p. 213, &eq. 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 231 

orange, yellow — have a stimulating effect, excite activity and 
movement. The receptive colours, among which may be reckoned 
blues, are depressing and subduing, and do not conduce to 
external activity. Yellow and dark blue serve as the typical 
representatives of the two sets, and the difference between their 
influence upon feeling strongly recalls the difference between the 
influence of light and of darkness upon feeling. Goethe describes 
the frame of mind induced by looking at a landscape on a dark 
winter's day through yellow glass as follows : " The eye rejoices, 
the heart expands, the mind is cheered ; an immediate warmth 
seems to breathe in on us." And as yellow recalls light, so blue 
recalls darkness. Goethe says : "As we see the high heavens, the 
distant mountains blue, a blue surface appears to recede before 
us. . . . Blue gives a feeling of cold, as recalling shadows. ... 
Blue glass shows objects in a mournful light." The transition 
between the two series is formed on one side (between yellow 
and blue) by green, on the other (between blue and purple) 
by violet. Green produces the impression of great repose, with- 
out the cold of blue and without the strong excitement of red. 
Violet may have more of the soberness of blue, or more of the 
liveliness of red. Red is distinguished from yellow by greater 
restlessness and force in its influence upon feeling. Goethe says of 
a brightly illuminated landscape, looked at through purple glass : 
" This must be the tone of colour which will encompass heaven 
and earth on the day of judgment." 

- With diminished illumination the energy of the active series is 
subdued ; with augmented illumination, all colours approximate 
to white, and the effect on feeling sustains a corresponding 
change. 

Answering to the contrast between light and darkness, there is 
in the department of hearing the contrast between sound and 
silence. Any sound naturally affords pleasure, merely because it 
sets in action the organs of hearing. The deafening music of 
children and savages gratifies nothing but this impulse in the 
organ towards stronger function. The contrast between the high 
and the low tones has been represented as corresponding to the 
active and receptive series in the scale of colours. The one set has 
a cheering and exciting effect ; the other is depressing, or produc- 
tive of seriousness and longing. The timbre of different instru- 
ments has, then, been arranged according to the same relation of 
contrast. Here, again, cheerfulness or energy, seriousness or 



232 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

quiescence, characterize the principal grades of the elementary 
feelings.! 

What applies to the quality of the sensations applies also to their 
composition and their form. Even the way in which the separate 
sounds and colours are combined may give rise to satisfaction or 
dissatisfaction.^ Under this head comes the feeling of pleasure in 
symmetry, in definite relations of form, also in rhythm and har- 
mony. Even these feelings are more or less differentiated from 
the general vital feeling. We will not go more closely into these 
rather complex relations, since it is enough for our purpose to 
describe the most elementary effects on feeling. 

4. The feelings linked with immediate sensations form thus a 
series of stages from the vital feeling up to the finely differen- 
tiated shades of feeling accompanying the qualitative sensations 
of the higher senses. This series of stages indicates the natural 
course of development of the elementary feelings. Before the 
definite appearance of special organs and functions, in the indi- 
vidual as in the race, feeling can be only a chaotic mass, a summary 
expression for the course of life. Its chief importance is in being 
a motive for movement. It is, however, necessary for the actual 
preservation of life, that the vital feeling should be differentiated, 
should receive special forms. In order to maintain his own 
existence, the individual must be able to feel the importance of the 
existence of other things. But this presupposes the differentiation 
of the special sense-organs. 

As regards the general relation between feeling and sensation, 
the result may now be laid down as follows. In respect of strength 
they stand in inverse relation, so that the stronger the feeling- 
element becomes, the more the properly sense-perceptive or cogni- 
tive element disappears. The sense-impressions which excite the 
strongest pleasure and pain teach us least as to external relations, 
however great their practical importance as warnings or entice- 
ments. In its most elementary forms, feeling is mainly determined 
by the strength of the excitation, and by the degree in which it 
affects the course of organic life. This is especially so with the 

1 Cf. Nahlowsky, Das Gefuhlsleben, p. 142, seq. ; Wundt, i., p. 471, seq. (3rd ed. i. 
p. 521 seq.) As Panum has remarked, physical and physiological observation lead here 
to different results. If the length of the wave and number of oscillations are considered, 
red will correspond to a deep, violet to a high, tone ; but according to the physiological 
excitation, red corresponds to a high, violet to a deep, tone {Sanserne og de vilkarlige 
Bevdgelser ("The Senses and the Voluntary Movements"), p. 198, seq.). 

2 Cf. as to the conditions of the aesthetic effect on colour combinations, A, Lehmann, 
loc. cii.^ pp. 92-142. 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 233 

excitations which set up instinctive movements ; their qualitative 
character is thrown into the shade by the stress of feehng and the 
desire which they excite. But when the quahtative property of the 
sensation is able to make itself felt, with a strength suited to the 
sense-organ, the feeling answering to the sensation is differentiated 
and specified. What it loses in force, it gains in richness and 
varied gradation, as also in independence of the immediate struggle 
for existence. 

The sum of energy, which in the vital feeling is concentrated on 
the one question " to be or not to be," on the organic weal and 
woe, is in the qualitative feelings divided and made to flow in 
different currents. Whether feeling actually gains or loses through 
qualitative differentiation depends on whether or no there is a 
corresponding growth in the total energy of the life of feeling. 



B. — Feeli7tg and Ideation. 

I. The feelings linked with immediate sensations acquire a special 
character through the qualitative property of the sensations. Bare 
oscillation between pleasure and pain is developed into a series of 
states of feeling, each of which receives its individual impress 
from being linked with a definite content of sensation. So that here 
already the evolution of feeling through cognition may be spoken 
of ; for the sensations, in so far as we can distinguish them from 
feelings of pleasure and pain, belong to the province of cognition. 
The most emphatic relation between cognition and feeling is, how- 
ever, reached only when we examine the influence of ideas upon 
the feelings. As already seen, pure sensation is an abstraction; 
with the impression of the moment there are always combined 
more or fewer, stronger or weaker residua or reminiscences of 
earlier sensations. The point at which the ideas and their com- 
binations obtain an influence over feeling cannot therefore be far 
from the beginning of conscious life, though this influence may not 
be plainly apparent until a later stage. 

Since we start with the assertion that the feeling of pleasure and 
pain is present in the most primitive mental states, and is pre- 
supposed before definite and clear sensation, we cannot avail 
ourselves of the ordinary definition of feeling as the effect of sensa- 
tions and ideas on consciousness. As primitive conscious element 
feeling is already given, before sensation and idea can exercise any 



±34 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

influence whatsoever ; their influence develops and modifies only 
what is already given. Nevertheless we rejected the view of 
conscious life as wholly evolved out of states of pure feeling 
(p. 96), partly because it was improbable that there could be 
feeling absolutely without sensations (general and motor sensations 
at any rate), partly because an intellectual element is already given 
in the differences in strength of feelings and in the oscillation 
between pleasure and pain. So that it is only an abstraction to 
speak of pure feeling without any cognitive element. It is, how- 
ever, allowable to employ such an abstraction as theoretical basis, 
since, by representing the relations in a yet simpler form than 
actual experience can afford, it facilitates the understanding of the 
laws which come into operation. 

2. A feeling of pleasure or pain naturally enters into an association 
with the idea of that which played, or appeared to play, a part in 
giving rise to the pleasurable or painful feeling, with consequently 
its real or apparent cause. Previous to such association, feeling has 
no direction or no object, is consequently not feeling adou^ or /or 
something. The changes, which feeling sustains in consequence of 
such association, we shall now consider in detail. 

{a) Pain becomes, by association with the idea of its cause, 
aversion (anger). The definite relation of the feeling to the object 
is manifested by movements calculated to remove the object or to 
move away from it. The earliest manifestations of this feeling have 
been described by Darwin as follows. " It was," says Darwin 
("Biographical Sketch of an Infant": Mind, ^'^11-, P- 287, seq), 
*^ difficult to decide at how early an age anger was felt ; on his " {i,e, 
the child described) '' eighth day he frowned and wrinkled the skin 
round his eyes before a crying fit, but this may have been due to 
pain or distress, and not to anger. When about ten weeks old, he 
was given some rather cold milk, and he kept a slight frown on his 
forehead all the time he was sucking, so that he looked like a 
grown-up person made cross from being compelled to do something 
which he did not like. When nearly four months old, and perhaps 
much earlier, there could be no doubt, from the manner in which 
the blood gushed into his whole face and scalp, that he easily got 
into a violent passion. A small cause sufficed ; thus, when a little 
over seven months old, he screamed with rage because a lemon 
slipped away and he could not seize it with his hands. When 
eleven months old, if a wrong plaything was given him, he would 
push it away and beat it ; I presume that the beating was an 



VI] the: psychology of feeling 235 

instinctive sign of anger, like the snapping of the jaws by a young 
crocodile just out of the egg, and not that he imagined he could 
hurt the plaything. When two years and three months old, he 
became a great adept at throwing books, or sticks, etc., at any one 
who offended him." 

Another child, who was perhaps less combative, turned his head 
away and cried at the sight of a cup out of which nasty medicine 
had once been given to him. In this case the feeling has a more 
passive character, and approximates to sorrow. In sorrow the 
feeling of pain is also determined by the idea of the cause, but the 
cause is a loss or some other thing against which no reaction is 
possible. Sorrow finds expression in a prevailingly passive and 
sunken bearing. Sorrow has as a rule a contemplative character, 
a strange desire being shown to retain and dwell on the object 
which has excited it. 

With further development, and presupposing the power of enter- 
ing into the feeling of other individuals, aversion or anger leads to 
pleasure in the personal cause of the pain having himself to suffer 
pain, or to pain in his feeling pleasure (what Bain has relevantly 
called malevolent sympathy). Hence arise hatred (desire of re- 
venge) and envy, while mere aversion and anger in themselves only 
urge the removal of the object from us or of us from the object. 

(b) By a similar metamorphosis the feeling of pleasure becomes 
delight and love. The idea of that which has an essential connec- 
tion with the feeling of pleasure blends with it and gives it a cer- 
tain direction. There arises an involuntary desire to retain and 
protect that which excites pleasure. Delight is this desire regarded 
from the passive, contemplative side, is pleasure in dwelling on the 
object ; love denotes the active side, the impulse to an action 
which shall make the object secure, or at any rate shall secure it 
to tcs. At higher stages of development arises sympathetic love, 
pleasure at the pleasure of others, together with pain at the pain 
of others (compassion). 

{c) From this exposition it appears that aversion and delight, anger 
and love, cannot be separated from iinpulse or desire. All pleasure 
or pain sets the organism more or less in movement. The form 
and direction of this movement are determined by the original 
structure of the organism. While it is often an ineffectual, if not 
injurious, discharge of the energy roused to activity, it is in other 
cases (in the so-called instinctive actions) a purposive approach 
to, or withdrawal from, the object. An vnpulse arises, when this 



236 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

involuntary introduction of a movement makes itself felt in con- 
sciousness with a certain idea of the end to which it leads. When 
the movement is executed easily and immediately, no impulse 
arises ; the whole thing then takes place as simple reflex movement 
beneath the threshold of consciousness. The movement must mxcet 
with a certain resistance, which need not, however, be so strong as 
actually to produce pain. In every impulse there is a certain dis- 
quiet; but this is simply due to the fact that the impulse points 
beyond the present and quiescent state, aiming either at retaining 
the cause of pleasure or setting aside that of pain. The stronger 
the resistance the more the disquiet passes mto pain — in its simplest 
form the pain of inhibited movement. To this is soon added pain 
because the object of pleasure cannot be retained, or because means 
cannot be procured for the removal of the cause of pain. In this 
way the impulse comes to consist more and more in feelings of 
pleasure and pain, and so gradually to be more definitely removed 
both from simple reflex movements and from the instinctive actions 
produced by immediate sensations. The impulse now receives a 
richer ideational content, being combined with the thought of that 
which hinders or promotes its object. The most natural distinction 
to draw between impulse and desire is to regard desire as impulse 
controlled by distinct ideas. — If its gratification is long delayed, or 
absolutely refused, the impulse, if deeply rooted in the nature of the 
individual, passes into strong pain. 

{d) Impulse is originally sanguine expectation. An emerging 
idea is not at first distinguished from an actual percept ; it is true 
that the strength is as a rule different, but there is no innate know- 
ledge of the meaning of this difference ; only experience, and that 
means here the same thing as disappointment, emphasizes the 
difierence between the possible and the actual {cf, p. 129 seq., where 
this relation is treated from the standpoint of the psychology of 
cognition). If now the idea of disappointment produces effect 
with greater or smaller force by the side of the idea of gratification, 
so that the thoughts dwell now on the one, now on the other, hope 
or fear arises. Let a denote a feeling of pain, a the idea of some- 
thing which may remedy it ; or let a be a feeling of pleasure, and a 
the idea of that which may retain and increase it. Farther, let 
b be an idea by which a is favoured, c another by which a is 
destroyed. Both b and c stand then in connection with a, and are 
called out by it according to the laws of the combination of ideas. 
Two associations will then be possible. So long as neither b nor c 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 237 

are given as actual experience, consciousness will pass now from 
a to b^ now from a to c. The question is, what influence is exercised 
upon feeling by this alternation of ideas. 

It was seen {A, 2) that feeling in general arises more slowly 
than sensations. Observation will easily convince us \h2X feelings 
also arise and bestir themselves more slowly than ideas. It takes 
longer to convert joy into sorrow than to pass from the idea of 
something joyful to the idea of something sorrowful. Even in 
persons of a sanguine temperament, thoughts and fancies alter 
with greater rapidity than the mood. If now consciousness passes 
from one of the given points of view (ab) to another {ac)^ the idea c 
will have the tendency to excite a new mood (7) ; but since the 
mood (iS) excited by the first idea ib) still endures, the two moods 
will coincide and form a combination. It is like waves striking 
upon the shore ; the advancing wave absorbs the receding one. In 
this way a mixed mood arises : hope, when bi^ has the upper hand ; 
fear, when c^ gains the upper hand. Both feelings presuppose a 
certain play of possibilities. 

The moods of hope and fear appear in innumerable gradations and 
shades, according to the relation of the possibilities to one another. 
The greater the possibility of attaining the end, the closer will hope 
come to certain expectation^ where the mind rests in the idea of 
the happy future without further disquiet than is inseparable from 
the consciousness that the present must give way to a future, — the 
smaller the possibility, the more nearly will fear approximate to 
despair or resignation. If the chances are thought equal, and the 
imagination is therefore attracted with equal force by either stream, 
the mind feels itself divided. Two different moods strive to expand 
in consciousness, but neither can gain the mastery. Hence arises 
the mood of doubt, the chief characteristic of which is a painful 
restlessness, which may excite so strong a desire to come to a 
decision that the nature of the decision seems indifferent if only the 
pain of uncertainty be ended.^ Men plagued with sudden sugges- 
tions or fixed ideas sometimes suffer under them so much, that they 
yield to incentives to murder or suicide, solely to obtain peace.^ 

{e) When two conflicting feelings press at once to the fore and 

1 Othello (Act iii., Sc. 3) says to lago, after the latter has excited his suspicion of 
Desdemona's fidelity : — 

** Thou hast set me on the rack ; 
I swear, 'tis better to be much abused, 
Than but to know't a little." 

2 Cf. YA^QX^ Biographieen Getsteskranker {'^ BiograTplnQS of the Insane"), Berlin, 1841, 
p. 134; Maudsley, Mental Pathology^ p. 358 seq. 



238 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

try to make themselves felt simultaneously with equal strength, 
there arises the intolerable sense of division just mentioned. This 
is, however, a rare case and of short duration. When Shakespeare 
makes King Claudius describe his mood at his wedding with his 
brother's widow as an equipoise of joy and sorrow/ it is certainly 
the intention of the great poet-psychologist to exhibit him as 
a hypocrite, who betrays himself by the unnaturalness of the 
condition which he attributes to himself. Where the one feehng 
does not suppress the other or reduce it to a subordinate element, 
they will succeed one another rhythmically. Plato describes as 
follows the emotion of the disciples of Socrates during their last 
interview with their master. He makes Phaedo say : " I found 
myself in a truly extraordinary state, in an unaccustomed mixture 
of delight (in the matter of his conversation) and of sorrow when 
I reflected that he must soon die. And all present were in almost the 
same frame of mind, now laughing and now crying.'' Such an 
alternation is the natural state, when different motives take effect. 
But this cannot long continue, for the mind seeks equilibrium, and 
by means of memory converts the successive into the simultaneous ; 
the two feelings are consequently blended into a new feeling, 
sorrow and joy, e.g. into melancholy. In softer natures this trans- 
formation is more easily effected than in the more passionate. 
Homer describes Andromache as "laughing amid her tears'' 
(daKpvSev yeXdaaaa)^ as Hector hands her their little son, that he 
himself may hasten to the battle. 

Sibbern has with justice therefore drawn a distinction between a 
mixture, or an alternation, of different or even conflicting states of 
feeling, and mixed feelings in the proper sense. In a mixed feeling, 
the difference of the constituents is no longer observed, since they 
go to make up one single total feeling — " as when fear is combated 
by boldness with respect to what is feared, or when in battle and 
great efforts the force is felt to be inflamed or helped on by the 
very checks and difficulties. Under this head may be brought a 
certain satisfaction in life, even blissfulness, by virtue of sorrow or 
some other effect of adversity being overcome and trampled on.''^ 

Such mixed feelings comprise elements which, if appearing 
separately, would bear a character different from the total feeling 

1 Hamlet, Act i., Sc. 2 : — 

" with a defeated joy, — 
With one auspicious, and one dropping eye. 
With mirth and funeral, and with dirge in marriage, 
In equal scale, weighing delight and dole." 

2 Psychologies Copenhagen, 1856, p. 380. 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 239 

which they help to form. Melancholy, e.g.^ may often have a 
pleasing character, but the feeling attendant on loss and misfortune 
is in itself a feeling of pain, unless neutralized, or rather overcome, 
by other elements of feeling. Conversely, there may be an element 
in sorrow or pain that would in itself be pleasurable, e.g. the feeling 
resulting from the memory-image of what is lost. Here, then, 
are instances of psychical chemistry in the province of feeling 
iff. p. 163). 

3. We have analyzed some of the simplest forms of feeling in 
order to discover the relation between the feeling-elements and the 
ideas combined with them. We will now see what this analysis 
teaches us as to the law of the evolution of feelings. 

In the earlier psychology appears the tendency to regard cog- 
nition as the principal thing and as what properly constitutes 
consciousness. For Plato the immortal part of the soul was one 
with thought or reason ; he conceived the feelings of pleasure and 
pain to arise, like sensations, only from the confinement of the soul 
in a material body. In modern idealistic philosophy a similar 
point of view may be traced. Kant and William Hamilton could, 
e.g.^ conceive spiritual beings possessing reason without feeling or 
will, but not conversely. For them the essence of consciousness 
coincided with cognition. " Consciousness is a knowledge '' says 
Hamilton. 

There was consequently a disposition to apply to feelings, 
without further preliminaries, the laws found for the evolution of 
ideas. This was especially the case with the laws of the associa- 
tion of ideas. The natural growth of the life of thought rests on 
these laws ; but do they also hold good as between the feelings ? 
Some psychologists (among the earlier, e.g, Spinoza, Eth.^ iii. 
14) hold that they do, and believe that feelings, which have 
once arisen together, will afterwards reproduce one another. 
But it is a great question, whether a feeling possesses in itself the 
power of producing another, however close the relation and the 
similarity. 

The question is : Can the feeling-element in a mental state 
attract the feeling-element in another mental state, or is the 
ti-ansition always effected through association of cognitive ele- 
ments ? 

(i) A state of consciousness (^) consists of a feeling-element 
(a) combined with a cognitive element {a). Now supposing there 
are other, related cognitive elements {a^^ a^, a^, etc.) which a 



240 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

has the tendency to excite, some of these will succeed in form- 
ing an association with a^ and through a with a, so that while 
a was previously determined only by a^ it will now be deter- 
mined hy a -{- a2 -\- a^ -{- a^. The frame of mind will be modified, 
the state A will become A^. This affords no absolutely new 
kind of feeling, but the given feeling spreads over a greater 
part of the conscious content. The feeling of pleasure in an object 
will be extended to that which has more or less similarity with the 
object. Compassion sometimes arises in this way, the idea of the 
suffering condition of another exciting pain through the memory 
of ourselves in a similar condition. 

(2) The original feeling sustains a greater alteration, when the 
fresh cognitive element is combined with the earlier, not through 
immediate association by similarity, but through association by 
contiguity, li A == a -{- a, and a is closely linked with b, then A 
becomes A^^ that is to say, the feeling remains the same in kind 
but is rendered more special. If e.g. a certain quality {a) is of 
great value in my eyes, and I discover or think I discover that 
I (b) have it myself, my admiration {A) becomes pride {Aj^,) 

(3) If finally the new idea {b) is itself accompanied by a 
feeling (/3) — that which it would have excited had it been pre- 
sented by itself — a new kind of feeling {B) arises. Instead of 
^ = a + ^ we have B = a -\- {a -\- b) -\- ^ -. that is to say a and /3 
are combined through a -\- b. This is the schema for the evolution 
of hope, fear, melancholy, and similar compound or mixed feelings. 

There cannot of course be any sharp line drawn between these 
three cases, since even ^^^gand ^3, etc., as well as b, must give riseio 
new shades of feeling, which fuse with the feeling already given. 

The combination of ideas seems therefore to be the channel 
through which the feelings mingle with one another. It is through 
the relation of thoughts to new thoughts that feelings pass into 
new feelings. Since, however, the movement of feeling is slower than 
that of the thoughts, it is not surprising that intellectual progress 
is as a rule in advance of the development of feeling. Thought 
is the most versatile part of our nature ; feeling forms the 
basis, to which results are only gradually transmitted from 
the more versatile surface. It is consequently vain to expect 
that enlightenment and instruction will yield sudden and quick 
results. Every idea has, indeed, its special feeling, but this 
always breaks its force on the feeling previously prevailing, and 
its effect is determined through the latter. Since feeling is so 



vi] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 241 

deeply and securely rooted in consciousness, all far-reaching 
mental development requires time, and the course and rate of 
development are conditioned not only by the laws of the flow of 
ideas but also by the special laws of the life of feeling {cf. section E.) 
On the other hand, that which has taken root in feeling is the 
better retained. In the decay of conscious life (without actual 
mental disease) the intellectual powers are lost sooner than the 
habits of feeling ; in the race, too, these latter persist longer, because 
they are more frequently transmitted than intellectual bents, 

4 If this view ^ is correct, it must find corroboration in the way 
in which the feelings are reproduced in memory ; for the laws of 
the association of ideas are the laws of memory. Now it is at 
once evident, that it is easier to recall ideas than the feelings which 
accompanied them. We can recall images and situations from the 
past, but only most imperfectly the moods which animated us.^ — 
The more gradations, the more definitely stamped features and 
relations, a mental state exhibits, the better can it be recalled in 
memory. But gradations and relations presuppose comparison, 
and belong to the sphere of cognition. The smaller the part which 
the cognitive elements play in a state, the more imperfectly can 
the state be remembered. Thus we more easily recall the alterna- 
tion and succession of feelings, than the several feelings by them- 
selves. It is in this respect with feelings, as sometimes with 
immediate sensations (p. 150) ; we can remember the fact that we 
have had them, without being able actually to recall them. It is 
due to special circumstances when the state of feeling is reproduced. 
Feelings are remembered by means of the ideas with which they 
were originally linked, and in conjunction with which they com- 
posed a certain conscious state {cf, the law of totality, p. 159). 
Only when we are absolutely absorbed, buried, in memories, 
can feeling be awakened. This is a simple consequence of 
the slower movement of feeling ; the thought returns in an instant, 

1 It has been already suggested by Hume {Treatise it., i, 5, 8), more definitely by 
Bain {Emotions and Will, i., 5), and by Kirchman {Erlduterungen zu Kants Anthro- 
J>ologie [" Illustrations to Kant's Anthropology "], p. 477). 

2 Longfellow has expressed this in the following beautiful lines : — 

" Alas, our memories may retrace 

Each circumstance of time and place, 
Season and scene come back again, 
And outward things unchanged remain ; 
The rest we cannot reinstate ; 
Ourselves we cannot re-create, 
Nor set our souls to the same key 
Of the remembered melody." 

{The Golden Legend.') 

R 



242 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

but it takes time for the feeling to unfold.^ A hindrance will 
always be given in the feeling that prevails at the moment 
{cf, V. B,^ yc) ; in any case this more or less modifies the earlier 
feeling, and a new feeling will arise, which will be the result of 
both (according to the schema a -\- (a -{- b) + ^). This is the 
source of many illusions which we entertain as to the past. 

The feelings which are linked with the senses of sight and 
hearing, and with free ideation and activity of thought, are more 
easily reproduced than those which we owe to the lower senses and 
especially than those which arise from the exercise of vegetative 
functions. They are consequently more freely at our disposal, 
and less easily cut off by external hindrances, a fact which is of 
the more importance since to this class belong the aesthetic, 
intellectual, moral, and religious feelings. 



C. — Egoistic and Sympathetzc Feeling, 

I. So far feeling in general has been spoken of, and it has been 
seen how the primitive feeling of pleasure and pain comes to 
be developed by being directed, through ideas which fuse with it, 
to definite objects. The further development of feeling receives 
its decisive stamp according as regard to the individual self or to 
something beyond the individual affords the centre of gravity of 
the feeling. 

At first this contrast, which when fully developed becomes the 
contrast between egoism and altruism (sympathy), cannot appear. 
In the dawn of conscious life, ideas are but little clear and definite, 
and the idea of self cannot therefore be contrasted with the idea of 
something outside the self, or of a different self. So that it is 
psychologically without meaning, to speak of a native egoism, if 
by egoism is understood the conscious setting of the weal and 

^ In individual cases, which are almost pathological, the fresh feeling that accompanies 
the remembrance may be the very same as in the original experience. ' Littre mentions 
a striking example of such "automnesie affective " from his own experience. • At the age 
of ten he had lost a little sister under specially sad circumstances, and had felt great 
sorrow about it. "Mais le chagrin d'un gargon ne dure pas beaucoup." He always, 
however, preserved a lively remembrance of the event, though the freshness of the pain 
had gone. Then in old age he felt again suddenly, without any special occasion, 
the same pain. "Tout a coup, sans que je ne le voulusse ni le cherchasse, par un 
phenomene d'automnesie affective, ce meme evenement s'est reproduit avec une peine 
presente non moindre, certes, que celle que j'eprouvais au moment meme, et qui alia 
jusqu'a mouiller mes yeux de larmes." This was frequently repeated in the course of 
several days, after which it ceased and gave place to the customary remembrance {Revue 
Philos. 1877, p. 660, seq.^. 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 243 

woe of others below our own. It would be just as correct to speak 
of native effrontery, because a child knows at first neither bashful- 
ness nor shame. 

From the beginning, then, according to the conditions of life, the 
pleasure or the pain felt must almost wholly depend on what 
favours the preservation and the development of our own being. 
Even the involuntary movements which do not involve any clear 
and distinct consciousness, are more or less directed to such an 
end. There is manifested in these an instinct of self-preservation, 
which is, however, (in man especially) far from perfect. In the 
involuntary movements of sucking, and in the disposition to put 
everything grasped into the mouth, may be recognized a tendency 
to refer everything to self as the centre ; this centre is not, however, 
the object of any idea. When ideas arise of that which excites 
pleasure or pain, the instinct of self-preservation stirs as love or 
abhorrence, and assumes the character of an impulse {cf, IV. 4 
and VI. B, 2c.). 

When now the feeling is determined by the idea of what 
promotes or hinders self-assertion (self-preservation and self- 
development), it will appear as a feelmg either of power or 
of powerless7iess^ according as we think we have or have not 
at our disposal sufficient means of self-assertion. Under self- 
assertion must be included here, not merely the maintenance of 
physical existence, but also the power of mental clearness and 
freedom, and of " making oneself felt " in relation to others (by 
controlling them, being recognized by them, etc.). That the feeling 
of power is the active or positive form of the feelings linked with 
self-assertion, is due to the fact that the idea of the cause of a 
feeling of pleasure (or of the hindrance to a feeling of pain) can 
excite pleasure only when we conceive this cause (or this hindrance) 
to be within our reach. " All conception of the future,'' says 
Hobbes,^ "is conception of power able to produce something. 
Whoever therefore expecteth pleasure to come, must conceive 
withal some power in himself by which the same may be at- 
tained." 

The feeling of power recalls the feeling of effort, which accom- 
panies the immediate sensation of organic vital energy (VI. A. 3^) ; 
what this (and its opposite) is among the elementary feelings, 
accompanying sensations, the feeling of power (and its opposite) is 
among the ideal feelings, accompanying ideas. Often the feeling of 

1 Human NatuTe^ viii. 3. 

R 2 



244 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

power is a simple prolongation or extension of the feeling of 
effort ; it may, however, arise without finding any actual basis in 
the latter. 

The feeling of powerlessness appears in humility, in repentance, 
or in self-contempt, which have their rise in the failure to obtain the 
control over the conditions of life which is recognized as desirable. 

In calling the feelings above-named egoistic^ we pronounce no 
moral judgment. To make such a judgment is not the business 
of psychology. All that is implied is, that they are linked with the 
individual self, and with its desire to continue in existence, to 
expand and to enjoy life. In the instinct of self preservation lies 
a tendency to make the individual self the centre of existence, and 
this tendency continues to take effect so long as no motive arises for 
the recognition of other centres of pleasure and pain in the world 
besides self. 

2. How is it in general to be explained, that the individual may 
feel pleasure or pain in something that is not a means to his own 
existence ? — This question has seemed so difficult to answer, that 
some have even denied the fact implied in the question. In this 
case, sympathy is explained as disguised self-love. " Self-love,'^ 
says Larochefoucauld, " never rests quietly outside the self, and 
lingers with strange objects only as the bees with the flowers, in 
order to draw from them what it requires." — Others have recog- 
nized a pleasure and pain in objects for their own sake, but have 
tried to explain the existence of such unselfish ^elings according 
to the general psychological laws. They even endeavour to 
show, that a psychological bridge may be thrown between absolute 
respect of self and absolute self-forgetfulness, between self-pre- 
servation and self-sacrifice. The most interesting and original 
expositions in this direction, are afforded by Spinoza and Hartley. 
Later, James Mill and John Stuart Mill have more fully developed 
the same theory. 

The laws of obliviscence previously mentioned (V. B. ?>d) find 
application here. An idea, which has occasioned the birth of 
another idea, may itself disappear, and this other idea obtain effect 
immediately and solely. An example often given is the independent 
value attached to money, although this is only a means of procuring 
certain commodities. For the miser, the intermediate link, without 
which the value cannot be established, and by means of which it 
originally arose, is wholly and completely forgotten. He loves the 
money for the money's sake, even indeed denies himself entirely 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 245 

the things it can procure. The feehng has been transferred from 
the end to the means, or rather it has made the means an end. 
So, too, persons and things, which at first were objects of joy and 
of love only because they caused pleasure, may become immediate 
objects of this feeling. We love them for their own sakes, having 
forgotten the original " reason why." ^ While here association by 
contiguity preponderates, in other cases association by similarity 
plays the chief part. This is so, when other persons have some- 
thing more or less in common with ourselves, in nature, appear- 
ance, circumstances, and interests. We are then accustomed not to 
separate them from our own self ; in everything which happens to 
them, we involuntarily set ourselves in their place, suffer and feel 
with them. Involuntarily the interest slides, by force of the law 
of similarity, from ourselves to others. On the other hand, not 
sympathy only, but also envy and ambition, may arise in this 
way. These feelings too arise from realization of the feelings 
of others. 

Sympathy presupposes that the common interests have the 
upperhand as against the conflicting interests ; it presupposes 
further that these common interests can be more or less consci- 
ously represented in thought. Narrow experience, narrow range 
of intelligence and imagination consequently narrow also the 
sympathies. History teaches, too, that sympathy is at first 
developed in narrow spheres and afterwards extended to wider. 
Each narrow sphere (family, rank, nation, sect) is in the position 
of egoist in relation to the wider spheres. Finally, sympathy may 
be extended to all living beings, to the whole of nature ; it then 
acquires ultimately a religious character, becomes what Spinoza 
has called " the intellectual love of God.^' 

This is a theory of evolution, since it lays down no absolute dis- 
similarity between egoism and sympathy, but endeavours to ex- 
plain them as feelings evolved under different conditions from a 
common source. It might be called the theory of individual 
evolution, since it maintains the possibility that such evolution, 

1 Paul Friedmann in his paper " The Genesis of Disinterested Benevolence" {Mind. 
1887), lays stress on the fact, that by living together men confer benefits on each other 
without expressly desiring it. The feeling of having in this way caused pleasure to 
another, arouses an interest in him ; care is taken not to undo the benefit, because there 
is a sense of power in helping others. The interest thus excited may come to embrace 
the whole person, and its original occasion be forgotten, Aristotle had already said 
something similar. "Benefactors seem to love those whom they have benefited, more 
than these love the benefactors. . . We find the same in craftsmen ; for every craftsman 
loves the work of his own hands more than it would love him, if it came to life." 
Aristotle explains this by the fact that the action is a part or an expression of our being. 
^icoJJi. Eth./ix. J. 



246 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

even an evolution from absolute self-assertion to absolute self- 
sacrifice, may take place in the lifetime of a single individual, 
without presupposing any further conditions than those above- 
mentioned. It certainly, however, over-estimates what can be 
attained in the lifetime of a single individual. In the feelings, as 
has been seen, it is a question of dealing with heavy masses ; when 
once they have found their centre of gravity, they do not lightly 
shift their position. It takes more experiences than a single 
individual can have in his lifetime, to complete a metamorphosis 
of this kind, forcibly and naturally as it may be described. 

The theory presupposes, moreover, the possibility of receiving 
help, or at any rate beneficial influence from others ; so that the 
individual is not isolated, not from the first sharply separated from 
other individuals. A society is presupposed, within which the 
individual develops. The problem therefore is only thrust 
farther back, and the question now is, whether a society, of such a 
kind that this evolution would be possible in it, could con- 
ceivably have arisen through the association of individuals, each 
of whom began with an unlimited instinct of self-preservation. 

In so far, finally, as the theory lays stress on the motive given in 
the similarity of other individuals to the individual himself, it 
presupposes an original impulse of imitation or an instinct to feel 
and to suffer with his like. This is so, e.g.^ with Spinoza, who 
suggests a theory developed later by Adam Smith. A man who 
sees another burning, involuntarily draws his hand close to his 
body. The cheerful or sad aspect of another infects us at once 
with the same emotion. Some even hold that this capacity of 
being infected with the mood of others, is grounded in an innate 
disposition. But in any case this capacity or this impulse requires 
a special explanation. 

This all points to the need of looking back beyond the individual 
impulse of self-preservation, if we are to understand how the 
individuals come to attach an independent value to something 
which extends beyond themselves. 

3. With the question of the origin of the individual the limits of 
psychology are reached. Here, then, no attempt will be made to 
solve this problem. It is, however, of interest to point out that 
much, which cannot find a full explanation in the individual's 
personal experiences, may become more intelligible when the 
individual is looked at in his full nature, as proceeding from the 
race. And as it may be with psychological individuality (the centre 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 247 

of pleasure and pain, of memory and self-consciousness), so, too 
physiology shows that the separation between individuals occurs, 
gradually, and that the stage in which the maternal and the young 
organism are independent of one another, must be preceded by a 
stage in which they form a single vital whole, or a single organism. 

Propagation stands to the race in the same relation as self- 
preservation, nourishment and renewal to the individual organism. 
The scale of living beings exhibits all possible forms of transition 
between individual self-preservation and the creation of new 
individuals out of the substance of the maternal organism. With 
plants and the lower forms of animal life, single cells in any part 
of the organism can at once lead an independent organic life 
directly they are severed from the maternal organism. The higher 
we ascend in the scale of existence, the more complex become 
the conditions for such development of the life of the organism, 
or continuation in new organisms. But the same fundamental 
condition applies even to creatures which propagate by sperm and 
ova, and where consequently the new organisms arise out of cells 
obtained from two different organisms, germ- and sperm-cells having 
been formed in the maternal and paternal organisms and certainly 
at their cost. Thus, whatever the mode of propagation, the 
organic individual spends the first portion of his life as a part 
of another organism. According to the view now generally 
accepted, the ovum is formed in the maternal organism even 
before its own birth ; in the opinion of some even in its ovum.^ 
While, therefore, the origin of the individual is ultimately lost 
in the distance, for physiology as for psychology, the important 
conclusion is, nevertheless, reached, that it is to be looked for in 
preceding organisms, and that the separation into independent 
organisms is the result only of a process of evolution. The origin 
of the individual is consequently brought under a general physio- 
logical point of view. Growth, as Baer^ says, is nourishment with 
formation of new elements, consequently a continued generation, 
and generation in its turn is nothing more than the commencement 
of a new growth. 

The fact that self-preservation and propagation, as even Plato 
taught in the Syjnposium^ pass into one another, supplies a 
physiological basis for the transition between pleasure in what 
affects the individual himself, and pleasure in what lies beyond his 

1 DItlefsen, Menneskets Histologi ("Human Histology"), p. 244. Claude Bernard, 
Legons siir les Phenouienes de la Vie, p. 311, 

2 Entwickehmgsgeschichte der Thierc C" History of Anirnal Evolution"), ii., p. 4. 



248 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

own vital process. Sympathy, theiij appears as literally growing 
out of self-preservation. Even after the physical union of the 
maternal with the young organism has been interrupted by birth, 
a close union is kept up by instinct. The most marvellous of all 
instincts are those which impel one generation to prepare the 
way for the next. Many insects secure nourishment and protec- 
tion for the larvse which come out of their eggs, but which they 
will never see. In none of its forms does maternal love know a 
" reason why ; " but it is especially obscure and instinctive where 
the mother does not have the child before her as an indepe^.dent 
organism. It is only in the latter case, that the general 
psychological laws can come into operation, and maternal instinct 
become actual maternal feeling. All instinctive care for beings of 
whom the individual can himself have no conception, must be 
guided in detail by special sensations. Instinct consists of the 
union of a strong feeling with certain sensations and involuntary 
motor-impulses. When, instead of the mere sensation, a percept 
and an idea of the child are possible, feeling takes a higher form. 
The child's smiles and caresses, its helplessness, the feeling of 
community which constant services produce in the donor, develop 
the originally bhnd and instinctive feeling into clearness and 
intensity. The feeling is then definitely differentiated from the 
general vital feeling, and may come into emphatic opposition to 
it. — The strength of the maternal feeling as compared with the 
instinct of self-preservation may be seen from the courage with 
which animals defend their young, and from the sorrow they feel 
on losing them. Swallows will fly into burning houses to save 
their young. When a young whale is harpooned, the mother will 
not desert it while it still lives. If polar bears are compelled, 
when chased, to leave their young, they presently return to look for 
them, and shed (according to Brehm) great tears and sv/im round 
the coast for several days in their distress. Many animals try to 
draw the attention of the pursuer from their young to themselves. 
These traits are the more remarkable from the fact that the 
struggle for existence tends to cultivate quite contrary qualities, 
for weak and wounded companions are a burden and a danger, 
which is why many animals {e.g. doves, stags, elephants) ill-treat 
and drive away their sick and wounded comrades.^ 

In animals and in the lower races of men, maternal love is lost 

1 Cf. Darwin's posthumous treatise on instinct, published in Romanes's Mental 
Evohition in Aniinah, p. 381. 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 249 

when the helpless age of the child is passed. In this connection 
it is psychologically of great importance that the higher organisms 
develop more slowly, and the period during which mother and 
child are united through instinct is consequently prolonged. This 
gives a firmer basis for the psychological evolution of the 
feeling. Where the relation between mother and child is per- 
manent, the feeling will attain to a yet higher form, embracing not 
only the physical, but also the mental, individuality of the child. 
When a vivid conception of the child^s independent conscious life 
has been formed, the psychological duality, in which sympathy 
consists, is quite complete. Pleasure and pain are felt, because 
another being feels pleasure and pain, just as the vibrations of one 
string set up corresponding vibrations in another. 

In the above only maternal, not paternal, love has been spoken 
of, because the latter shows itself strongly only at higher stages. 
Maternal love is not only the strongest sympathetic feeling ; it is 
also — if we regard the scale of living beings as the expression of a 
long process of evolution — the sympathetic feeling which is earliest 
manifested, and that which, by establishment of the most primitive 
social relations, lays at the same time the basis of all the means 
and forms of the further and higher development of sympathy. 
The relation between mother and child gives the most primitive 
family and the most primitive human society. It makes ^ a pure 
" state of nature," an absolute individualism impossible. In the 
animal kingdom, the male seldom shares in the care of the 
young. The father is often a danger and a foe to his own 
young. Darwin relates in his Voyage Round tJie World ^ a strik- 
ing instance of the egoism of the male and self-sacrifice of the 
female. The wild horses on Falkland's Island roam constantly 
from place to place, and compel the mares to accompany them, 
whether the young foals are old enough to follow or not. A man 
saw a horse violently kick and bite a mare for a whole hour, and so 
compel her to leave the foal to its fate. Masculine egoism shows 
itself also in the human race, where the care of the children at the 
lower stages is left to the mother. Only where marriage takes a 
permanent form — and this happens, as already taught by Lucretius 
(v, 1008), especially when permanent dwellings are provided — may 
the paternal relation become a source of sympathetic feeling. The 
paternal feeling then ranks with the maternal. 

^ Cf. Die Grundlage der Hninanen Ethik {"-T^it. Basis of Humane Etliics"), Bona 
1880, pp. 16, 40, seq. 



250 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

One sign that, in the evolution of human sympathy, half-un- 
conscious instinct precedes ^ the properly psychological evolu- 
tion determined by the laws of combination of ideas, is that 
sympathy is aroused earlier in those who give than in those who 
receive benefit. The love of parents to children is, as a rule, 
stronger than that of children to parents. During the proscriptions 
of Sulla sons sometimes betrayed their fathers, but never vice 
versa. - 

Under the shelter of the defence provided by the paternal and 
maternal sympathy, may grow up the fraternal and friendly 
sympathy. And this may extend, by means of the psychological 
process described above (2), even beyond the family. It reaches 
perfection in the feeling that all men are brothers, of like nature 
and subject to like conditions. 

4. There is yet another powerful feeling' which grows out of a 
natural instinct, and forms an important basis for the development 
of sympathy. The feeling of love in its primitive form is, like 
maternal love, a " moment ^' of the general vital feeling. Its 
first stirrings also are connected with revolutions within the 
organism, which give to the vital feeling a previously unknown 
character. There arise new and inexplicable longings and sen- 
sations. Something stirs in the individual which impels him 
beyond himself. But at the primitive stages the individual still re- 
gards the object, with which instinct unites him, merely as a means. 
Love is at first only an extension of egoism. Aristophanes, in 
Plato's Sy77iposiuin^ consequently explains it, by the gods having 
cut men in half, so that the two halves wander about with longing, 
and search for one another. The comparative physiology of pro- 
pagation in a measure bears out this humorous explanation. 
It shows us various forms of transition from nonsexual to sexual 
propagation. In the lowest forms of sexual propagation the cor- 
related organs are found in one and the same individual ; one such 
hermaphrodite represents the whole species, while in higher beings 
two different individuals are required to represent the species. In 
this dual representation — as in the contrast between mother and 
child — it is as though one self were divided in two parts. 

Here, again, this duality becomes of importance only when the 

1 There is a detailed account of this course of development in Herbert Spencer's 
Psychology (Part II.), Sociology (Part I.), and in his Data of Ethics. In Danish literature 
there is a description of the primitive family and social relations in the work Savtfunds- 
legejuets Grundlove ("The Fundamental Laws of Human Society"), by Claudius. 
WilkenSj Copenhagen, a;88i, iv., pp. 3-4. 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 251 

idea of the object determines the feeling. At the lowest stage the 
object is not presented as a second self. But even in the animal 
kingdom we find an approach to this. The courtship of animals 
is, as Darwin has proved in his celebrated work on sexual selection, 
by no means so simple a matter as is ordinarily supposed. An 
individual preference is often met with ; beauty and other attrac- 
tive qualities are taken into account, and a touching fidelity is often 
shown. Here are already given the motives, which in the human 
race effect the development of love from an undisciplined sensual 
desire, in which the individual seeks his own pleasure only, to a 
tender self-abandonment and to delight in another individual. 
Looked at purely egoistically, the sexual instinct is a deception ; it 
looks as though it were for the gratification of the individual, and 
yet only assures the preservation of the race. Schopenhauer, who 
thought the nature of love exhausted in mere sexual instinct, 
preached in consequence revolt against it, from indignation at the 
deception practised by " der Wille zum Leben.^' This instinct, which 
in its lowest forms does not require to know the object gratifying 
it, becomes, however, refined and ennobled, the more it is linked 
with, and determined by, the image of another independent in- 
dividual — an image which can excite delight and admiration, and 
not merely immediate desire. The feeling then acquires the 
character of sympathy, being determined and conditioned by the 
feeling of another individual, who is no longer sought out as a 
means of self-gratification. Instead of entering with a demand and a 
dictatorial request, the feeling can now be satisfied only by free 
yielding. " Pleasure he (the powerful) may steal, but love must be 
a gift '^ (Schiller).i And that the means has become the end may 
be seen from the fact that resignation is possible, that the desire 
may be abandoned without the feeling ceasing. While the elemen- 
tary sexual instinct serves only for the physical maintenance of the 
race, in ideal (such as maternal) love the race is realized as a 
spiritual union of individuals. 

5. In the instincts named above we have the helping hands 
which, from the first, lead men to something beyond them- 
selves, and bring them into relations where the educative laws of 
association may operate. This has already been brought out by 
Shaftesbury, in opposition to the individualistic account of 
sympathy. In later times this point of view has been especially 

1 In Manprat, George Sand has described how brute instinct may sustain a meta,- 
morphosis into ideal human feeling. 



252 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

applied by Spencer and Darwin. This doctrine might be called 
the geiieral theory of evohition, since it explains the origin of 
sympathy through the progressive evolution of the whole race. 
Once the feeling is linked with an idea, and this with another idea, 
then (according to B. 3) the way is opened for the extension and 
modification of the feeling. Natural selection constantly operates 
more or less in the same direction, for strong and deep sympathy 
strengthens individuals in their struggle for existence, and makes 
life itself of more value to them. And since the metamorphosis 
of feeling takes place slowly during the life of the race, the organ- 
ization inherited by the new individuals may take advantage of 
its results. The laws of heredity make it possible for the ex- 
perience of earlier generations to become a capital, with which 
later generations may begin. Besides heredity, tradition and 
education operate, for the forms in which earlier generations have 
given expression to their sympathetic feelings take effect in later 
generations by sympathetically exciting and educating feeling. The 
sympathetic instinct unfolds in a Christian otherwise than in an 
Hellenic atmosphere, amid modern humanitarianism otherwise than 
in the mixture of asceticism and barbarism of the Middle Ages. The 
amount that depends on tradition, the amount on heredity, and the 
amount that, on the basis of the constantly operating instincts, 
must be acquired and evolved in the course of the individual life, 
are different in every individual, in either sex, in every race and 
every age. 

Taking the instinct of self-preservation as the original basis, 
which gets modified by the influence of experiences operating ac- 
cording to the laws of association, then, as already indicated, a 
ruling feeling of hatred, of envy, and of malice, can be as well con- 
structed as a ruling feeling of sympathy. Spinoza has already 
called attention to this.^ If, then, it is asked why psychology does 
not trace the growth of a disinterested ill-will, but rather dwells upon 
the growth of disinterested love, the answer must be, first, that the 
formal laws are the same for both processes of development ; all 
that is required is a change of sign. But the chief reason is, that 
disinterested malice (malevolent sympathy) does not find the same 
food in the conditions of life as the contrary feeling. It may arise 
under certain individual and unhappy circumstances {cf. Shake- 
speare's Richard the Third, and Miss Wade itv Little Dorrif) ; but 

1 TTM., ill,, 32, Schol. " We see, then, that, from that same property of human nature 
which leads men to be compassionate, it also results that they are envious and ambitious," 



Vi] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 253 

it cannot strike root in nature, because it is inimical to life instead 
of tending to its preservation and promotion. Even though it may 
find favouring conditions in the conflicting interests of individuals, 
families, races, and creeds, yet in the long run historical develop- 
ment tends to smooth down and do away with such want of 
harmony, to conduct the conflicting interests into a common cur- 
rent. This is often finally accomplished by the sympathetic 
feelings grounded in organic instincts (as in the tale of the rape of 
the Sabines ; of the union between patrician and plebeian ; of 
Romeo and Juliet). 

The parallel named, between the psychological development 
of disinterested love and that of disinterested malice, accounts for 
the ease with which they sometimes pass into one another. In 
both, ideal forces are set in motion ; lukewarmness and indiffer- 
ence have disappeared. It is merely a question of shunting the 
train, already on its journey, so as to send it in another direction. 

If the question is raised, which of the two forms of sympathy is 
the more primitive, the sharing of joy or the sharing of sorrow, a 
distinction must certainly be drawn between sympathy as elementary 
instinct and as a definite feeling determined by experiences and 
ideas. The elementary sympathetic instinct (as manifested in the 
attitude to posterity and to the opposite sex) aims as much at the 
augmentation of the object's pleasure as at the removal and diminu- 
tion of its pain ; it is directed to the maintenance and promotion of 
the general existence of the object. On the other hand, it is 
certainly the case, that compassion at the [sight of the suffering of 
others, more easily arises than satisfaction at the sight of their 
pleasure. Pain and suffering (both of ourselves and others) make, 
at any rate at the moment, a stronger impression than pleasure 
and joy, a circumstance which is perhaps connected with the fact 
that pain always affords a motive to activity ; there is something 
to be done, something which may perhaps be at once relieved, 
while the feeling of pleasure is an actual indication that for the 
present all is as it should be* In the struggle for existence it is 
the wounded who need help ; the others can take care of them- 
selves. 

6. Even where the instinct does not find direct gratification, it 
may still exercise a powerful influence. The movement which it 
causes in the vital feeling must find an outlet, and if there is none 
for it in reality, it will be sought in an ideal. To the ascetic and 
mystic "the heavenly virgin" is the ideal which takes the place of 



254 ' OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

an earthly woman. Already, Plato, in the Symposium^ has with 
genius described Eros as the instinct for the ideal, which may be 
gratified either by love or by the striving after honour, power, or 
knowledge. Eros is the great teacher, who persuades men to fix 
their hearts on something beyond their own selves. As a parallel 
to this ideal effect of instinct, instances are not wanting of an un- 
pleasant admixture of sensuality and mysticism. In the actual 
instinct nothing more is implied than that the need of self-devotion 
is excited ; it then becomes a question of how this need is gratified. 
For this reason the period of transition from childhood to youth is 
so important and eventful in the life of every human being. The 
power of obscure but strong feelings leads the individual out beyond 
the limits of his own personality, sets in movement thought and 
imagination, and arouses an idealizing impulse. This is a time 
when everyone has a touch of genius, whatever they may be at other 
times. Goethe, in his poem Der S chafer (" The Shepherd '^), has 
described with inimitable humour this ideal breaking into flame, too 
often of brief duration, which" drives men far afield,^^ but gives way 
to the normal prosaic frame of mind when once the physical need of 
the instinct has been satisfied.^ 

The most important crisis in the development of a feeling is when 
its object is removed out of the sphere of sensation and perception 
into that of ideation and memory. The source of all poetry, all 
morality, and all religion, springs where the sympathetic feeling no 
longer has its object immediately present. The immediate union 
with the object then gives place to a certain distance, and it 
becomes a question whether the feeling can bridge over this 
distance, so that " in der Feme fiihlt sich die Macht ^^ (in the distance 
the power is felt) (Goethe, Das Blilinlein Wunderschon). 

Bain lays great stress on the importance of contact and caresses 
in all forms of tender feeling, whether love for children and those 
dependent on us, or friendship or love for the opposite sex. ^' As 
anger is consummated, reaches a satisfying term, by knocking 
some one down, love is completed and satisfied with an embrace. 
.... In a word, our love pleasures begin and end in sensual 
contact.'^ The strength of this impulse finds its explanation in 
the fact that touch is the fundamental sense, that out of which, 

1 Cabanis observes (^Rapports dit. Physique ct du Moral dc V Hoimne^ v., lo) : — " J'ai 
VII norabre de fois la plus grande fecondite d'idees, la plus brillante imagination, une 
aptitude singuliere a tous les arts, se developper tout a coup chez des filles de cet age, 
mais s'eteindre bientot par degres, et faire place au bout de quelque temps a la medio- 
critc d'esprit la plus absolue. La meme cause n'a souvent pas moins de puissance chez 
les jeunes gardens ; souvent aussi les heureux effets n'en sont pas plus durables." 



vi] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 255 

according to the evolution hypothesis, the other senses are 
evolved. Only this fundamental sensation can afford the im- 
pulse of love its highest gratification."^ So much the greater is the 
pain caused by separation, which prevents the gratification of the 
deep organic impulse. It is then a question, whether an ideal union 
is able to take the place of the physical, whether a mental tie can 
become as strong as a bodily. The transition from physical to ideal 
union is, as a rule, only effected through resignation. This resigna- 
tion may, however, completely vanish in the deep and full union 
with the object, which enters in the place of the immediate and 
instantaneous union. Where the object of feeling is great and com- 
plex, sensuous perception is even impossible. Even with the feeling 
for a single personality this is so. A personality is never fully 
given in any single moment, or in any single situation; it is to 
be had as a whole only in the sum total of its life, of its history. 
If we love some one, we do indeed picture him in some one definite 
situation ; but this serves only as an example or type {cf. the 
theory of individual ideas, V. B. 9). The feeling thus acquires an 
ideal character so soon as it seeks to embrace the personality in 
its totality and unity, which is as soon as it gets beyond the stage 
at which the object is only a means of personal gratification. 
Since, however, an individual life is never self-contained and 
complete, but subject always to growth and alteration, the ideal 
feeling acquires at the same time the character of a faith, a faith 
that the inner essence of the personality to which we are united by 
sympathy, will remain self-consistent throughout all changes. 

Feeling becomes yet more ideal, when it is directed towards a 
large, comprehensive whole (the family, the state, humanity), or is 
concerned with that which from its nature cannot be conceived as 
limited (God, nature). If a definite idea is here to be associated 
with the feeling, it can be only by way of symbolism. The 
history of religion shows how deep in the nature of feeling lies 
the tendency to symbolize. Hence the impulse to secure the ideal 
and infinite in definite forms, that feeling may have a point to 
gather round. On the other hand, we see also how fixed symbols 
may check and narrow feeling, which is the reason why it con- 
stantly breaks them and seeks satisfaction in new forms (the conflict 
between mysticism and dogmatism). 

The development of thought and imagination is always a 
necessary presupposition of the higher development of sympathy. 

1 Emotions a7ui Will, 3rd ed., p. 126. 



256 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

In order to feel for others, an individual must have had his 
own experiences, must be acquainted with pleasure and pain, 
and know what causes these feelings. The range of sympathy 
is determined therefore by the experiences of the several in- 
dividuals, nations, and ages. When circumstances lead, as in 
savage races, to stoicism and disregard of suffering, no fellow- 
feeling with the pains of others will be developed. Philanthropy 
presupposes therefore a certain degree of civilization. As stoicism, 
so too asceticism, may be a check to sympathy, for which reason 
the principle of universal love to mankind introduced by Chris- 
tianity could be properly unfolded only after the ascetic tendency 
of the Church had been repressed. Next to actual experience of 
pleasure and pain, it is important to be able to preserve them in 
memory and to apply them to the understanding of the state of 
others. It is a question of being open to vivid impressions and of 
possessing sufficient versatility to put ourselves in imagination in the 
place of others. It has been justly observed, that want of sympathy 
is often want of imagination and mental quickness, and does not 
arise from actual want of feeling. It is especially difficult to enter 
into the feelings of others, when their conditions of life (internal 
or external) are very different from our own. Difference of 
language (as between Greeks and barbarians), of colour (as with 
the negroes),^ of rank, and of faith have afforded long and 
stubborn resistance to the growth of sympathy in the human 
race. Formal logical consistency may be here of great import- 
ance. As it can be said with some reason that egoism is unwise, 
because a man may often work for himself by working for others, 
so — and certainly with more reason — it may be said that egoism is 
illogical, when it narrows the sympathies; it makes exceptions which 
do not accord with the nature of the case. In historical development 
a relentless logic is at work, leading sympathy to conquer, not only 
personal egoism, but also the egoism of family and of nation and 
creed. Impartial knowledge works into the hands of widest 
sympathy ; and both come to a stop only at natural bound- 
aries. Finally, the development of the intellectual life has 
importance also for the form and the means in and by which 
sympathy is gratified. If the sympathetic impulse of, the moment 
is indulged, the object of sympathy may be as likely injured as 
benefited. This momentary emotion must, then, admit of being 

J It was a moment memorable in the history of the world, when Abraham Lincoln, on 
his entry into Richmond, took off his hat before a negro who^ gave him his blessing. A 
lady who was looking on from a window above turned away with inexpressible horror ! 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 257 

kept in check, to make way for consideration of the enduring 
happiness of the object, and this is impossible without the capacity 
for far-sighted and all-round reflection. Sympathy, like egoism, 
may show a dread of circumscription, a desire to be allowed its 
course, and so far it may even be said to contain an egoistic 
" moment.'^ 

The relation between the ijit ell e dual and the einotional element 
in sympathy varies to infinity in the individual cases. Now a re- 
flection in imagination of the nature and fate of the object, now our 
immediate unity of life and feeling with it, lends the feeling its 
special character. Poetic sympathy is characterized by the pre- 
ponderance of the first influence, so that sometimes a pure imagin- 
ative satisfaction may be found even in dwelling on and describing 
adversity and the dark side of life. Writings which give a vivid 
and correct description of personal and social suffering, may have 
a certain repelling effect, because of the absence of genuine feeling. 
The intellectual element of sympathy is at the same time a 
distancing force ; it permits the object of sympathy to recede 
somewhat, that it may be the more fully apprehended. It is 
therefore of importance only where the substratum of feeling is 
strong and deep. The emotional element lies deeper than the in- 
tellectual ; the real importance of the latter is in its refining, 
enlarging, and exalting effect. 

7. We return to the question of the possibility of disinterested 
sympathy. From what precedes, it is evident that we may very 
well apply the term "interest" to sympathy without necessarily 
stigmatizing it as egoism. The race can as little be separated from 
the individual, as the individual from the race. In the instincts 
which lie at the bottom of maternal feeling and of the feeling of 
love, what is marvellous is just this impossibility of drawing a 
line between what the race desires and what the individual. And 
however ideal a character sympathy may acquire, however exalted 
and comprehensive that in which a man finds pleasure may be, it 
is just as much a part of his self, of his consciousness, as he is a 
part of it. The pleasure and pain which he feels in it are his own 
pleasure and pain ; how else could he feel them 1 But in " dis- 
interested love " he does not feel them as his own in the sense that 
absorption in the object is only a means of greater personal 
enjoyment. If not " one who wishes to annihilate himself,'^ a 
'' disinterested person " can only mean one who immediately 
shares in, and rests in, the pleasure and the pain of others, with- 

S 



258 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

out demanding for himself more than the power of being thus 
inspired. 

It is impossible to love anything or anybody without experiencing 
thereby joy and satisfaction. A special pleasure is associated 
with every strong stir of feeling, whatever the nature of the feel- 
ing. Even in sorrow there is, together with the bitterness, a depth 
and vividness of mood, a strong stirring of the mental powers, 
which has its attraction and its charm. It is as the opening of all 
the floodgates. This is the pleasure or gratification in weeping and 
mourning, of which even Homer speaks. Strong emotion introduces, 
moreover, a series of organic reflexes, and with their discharge is com- 
bined a certain satisfaction. In mental and bodily exaltation is thus 
to be sought the ground of the attractiveness which lies in sorrow.^ 
What may in this way take place in sorrow, is found more or less 
in all other feelings. \Here lies undoubtedly the germ of an 
egoistic turn even to the sympathetic feelings. There may be an 
hysterical desire to set feeling in motion. The feeling is enjoyed, 
being made the object of reflection. But here there is more than 
the immediate feeling ; the idea of self as possessing the feel- 
ing comes into effect. This reflectiveness of feeling is the 
peculiarity of sentimentality^ which is consequently mainly a 
modern phenomenon (though it may be traced already in Euripides 
and in the Alexandrian epoch). The egoistic element in sentimen- 
tality is the coquetting which the individual — instead of being quite 
taken up with the feeling — carries on with himself as the subject of 
the feeling. It is connected with this instinctive or conscious 
satisfaction in the stir of feeling, that sympathetic feeling is 
so often thoughtless, and consequently satisfied without being of 
real service to the object of sympathy. The mark of unselfish 
sympathy in this as in other respects is the possibility of resigna- 
tion. Pure and strong sympathy must be able even to deny itself. 
Sympathy may be subjected to yet another test. Even if we are 
quite absorbed in our feeling for an object, we may still retain the 
wish that it should be we ourselves who work and live for it. If now 
circumstances arise in which our service is a check on the develop- 
ment of the object's nature and worth, or in which others can work 
for it better and more eflicaciously, it becomes a question whether 

1 This explanation, given by W, Hamilton and Bouillier, seems to me the most pro- 
bable (cyi Bouillier, Du Plaisir et de hi Donlcu}'^ chap. vii.). It is more natural than 
that suggested by Spencer {Princ. of Psychol., ii., p. 590, seq.')^ according to which 
the desire to abandon oneself to sorrow would spring from a feeling of suffering un- 
deservedly, sorrow thus, through an effect of contrast, calling out a lively consciousness 
of real merit. 



Vi] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 259 

our sympathy is strong enough to make us draw back, or to let us 
feel contented that it is not we who are charged with the care of the 
beloved object. 

Such resignation is possible, and affords the finest proof of pure- 
ness of sympathy. So far, Molinos and Fenelon in a theological, 
and Spinoza in a philosophical connection, were perfectly right to 
present a love free from all thought of self, independent of all re- 
ward or punishment, as the highest. The Catholic Church con- 
demned this doctrine, principally indeed that the educative media 
contained in the thought of rewards and punishment should not be 
lost. Psychology, however, cannot admit that disinterested love is 
a chimera ; it is chimerical only when carried so far as to require 
that life and the stir of feeling shall be lost in an absolutely simple, 
quiescent state. Such a state, as already frequently observed, 
would mean the cessation of conscious life. 

8. With the higher forms of sympathy is connected the ethical 
feeling. In disinterested sympathy the feeling of pleasure or pain 
is immediately determined by the recognition of an existence other 
than that of the individual himself. Instead of seeming the centre 
of existence, the individual now feels himself one among many. 
He now judges even his volitions and actions not only by the 
pleasure or pain they afford him, but also by the advance or re- 
trogression they bring to the object of sympathy. When sympathy 
leads to such a valuation^ it becomes an ethical feeling. This 
appears in its fully developed form when sympathy embraces all 
creatures that feel and suffer, and when consequently the value is 
decided] by consideration of the greatest possible benefit to the 
greatest possible number. The ethical feeling has then the 
character of a feeling of justice, understanding by justice a com- 
bination of sympathy and wisdom (" caritas sapientis^^ to use 
Leibniz's expression). The notion of justice involves two things ; 
an impulse to give, and an impulse to give according to the true 
needs of each claimant. There is thus, besides the intellectual 
" moment " that is found in all higher forms of sympathy {cf, 6), 
a new intellectual " moment ^' in ethical feeling, by which the right 
division and direction of sympathy are conditioned. The ethical 
feeling implies the idea of a connected whole of conscious beings, 
each of whom has his own special centre of life, and each of whom 
consequently has a claim to a special form and direction of 
sympathy. The view being thus enlarged, the individual feels him- 
self only a single member of a great kingdom evolved in the course 

S 2 



^6o OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vl 

of ages. And that to which the impulse of self-preservation and 
the impulse of momentary sympathy alike impel him, is ultimately 
controlled by the impulse to work for the advancement of this 
kingdom. 

When this impulse comes into more or less strong opposi- 
tion to the egoistic or the narrower sympathetic feeling, it 
is felt, if it still succeeds in taking effect, as a law which 
requires the individual and limited to be subordinated to the 
universal and comprehensive. The ethical feeling resulting from 
this is the feeling of duty, which comprises always an element of 
resignation, though it does not necessarily, as Kant supposed, 
contain a feeling of pain, — at the suppression of the lower sensual 
desires of our nature before the majesty of the ethical law. There 
may be a relation, even an opposition, between a higher and a lower 
in us, without any actual feeling of pain arising from it. The 
feeling of the truth and majesty of the ideal can so excite our 
activity, that the hindrances produce only the more definite feeling 
of our powers. Of course, it is not always so. The hindrances may 
be so strong that the most painful opposition and contradiction 
arises in the mind. Feeling stands then against feeling, and the 
one feeling pronounces judgment on the other. In the opposition 
between the ideal recognized and the imperfect realization of the 
will, is manifested the ethical feeling of 7rpentance, in which the in- 
dividual confronts as a judge his own existence and his own actions. 
Very often repentance is the first form of the feeling of duty, appears 
as the birth-pangs of the ethical character. As in the evolution of 
cognition a natural sanguineness is manifested, leading to rash 
expectations and conclusions, and consequently to disappointments, 
so in the province of feeling a blind desire may sweep men along, 
and a corrective have to be given afterwards by pain. Even the 
Greeks were keenly alive to the way in which repentance succeeds 
the blinding of passion.^ The further development of the ethical 
feeling makes it possible to anticipate repentance (ethical disap- 
pointment), reflection coming into force already with possible action, 
not merely with that already executed. In conscience are asserted 
both the corrective power of the ideal as regards the past, and the 
capacity of subjecting future action to an ideal test. This is the 
ethical memory. In it the experiences of the past fuse with all the 
teaching of far-sighted reflection, into one collective power, which 
can take expression with the immediateness and strength of the 

1 Cf. The Allegory in the 9th book of the Iliad, v. 502—507. 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 261 

instinct or of the impulse. Conscience is the most individual and 
most concrete form of the ethical feeling. 

All repentance does not come under the head of ethical feeling. 
It has been observed, in passing, that repentance may be felt even 
from the standpoint of mere self-preservation. This is the case 
when we have acted against our otherwise dominant selfish interest. 
Repentance acquires an ethical character only when we feel our- 
selves in conflict with the requisitions of sympathy ; and the deeper 
and more closely we apprehend the ethical law, the more we feel our- 
selves bound to it in our innermost nature, the more powerfully and 
penetratingly does repentance work in us. 

The ethical feeling passes through a whole scale of forms of 
development. Looked at historically, it does not find full explana- 
tion either in the instinct of self-preservation, or in sympathy, or in 
the influence of the intellect upon feehng. It has developed under 
the protection of educative powers, authorities. These powers are 
educative partly with intention, and partly without it. They have 
often pursued their own ends and yet contributed to the develop- 
ment of the ethical feeling, moulding human nature by rewards and 
punishment, checking some feelings and cherishing others. At the 
lowest stage authority makes its appearance as an overwhelming 
physical power ; it here instils fear and trembling — that is, purely 
egoistic feelings. At higher stages, on the other hand, where authority 
appears as a power protecting and promoting life, fear is mingled 
with sympathy and admiration, and passes into reverence. From 
this it is but one step to the true ethical feeling, which presupposes 
a conviction independent of external authority.^ 

The religious feeling is, historically and psychologically, closely 
connected with the ethical.— Even it bears at the lowest stage the 
character of fear. That fear first created gods, is borne out by the 
fact, about which all anthropologists appear to be agreed, that evil 
beings were worshipped before good ones. Belief in gods and belief 
in immortality are at the lowest stage one, for the gods 
believed in are the spirits of the dead, and those spirits only the 
object of worship, which are thought capable of doing harm. 
Religious veneration is here a simple recognition of power. A 
higher stage is reached where the extraordinary, inconceivable and 
wonderful awakes religious feeling ; this acquires then the character 
of admiration and of reverence^ and begins to be of a disin- 

1 A more detailed examination of the ethical feeling and its development Is given in 
my work, Die Grundlage der Humane ft Ethik ("The Basis of Humane Ethics"), 
Bonn, 1880. 



262 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

terested nature. — The feeling acquires real ethical significance only, 
when the great powers, on whom man feels himself dependent, are 
presented to him as the upholders of ethical aims and excellence. 
This stage is reached in the religions of higher races. The religious 
feehng has a constant source, which no intellectual progress can 
affect, in the great question as to the connection of ethical endeavour 
with natural evolution in general, and its importance for this. It 
can drive out all egoistic and personal stirring of fear and hope, 
under the influence partly of insight into the settled, regular order 
of nature, partly of the requisitions of ideal ethics. But there 
always remains the question of the relation between the ethical 
ideals and the actual reality. The fact that everything which we 
admire as true, beautiful, and good, has been evolved under natural 
conditions gives a religious character even to the idea of nature. 
It contains the motive of the idea of an ethical order of the 
universe, in consequence of which the innermost essence of reality, 
the innermost force of natural evolution, cannot be foreign to that 
which works out in human ideals. The religious feeling may be 
called a cosmic vital feeling ; as in the organic vital feeling (VI. A. 
2,d) we have the fundamental mood which is excited in 'US by the 
course of the organic functions, so the religious feeling expresses 
the determination of our life of feeling by the course of natural 
evolution. Since, however, in actual experience the ideal and 
virtuous appears always as a struggling power, the religious feeling 
acquires a character of faith and longing, and that idea (of 
an ethical order) — looked at theoretically — appears as the final 
hypothesis or final postulate, of the validity of which no other 
indication can be found than just the ideal worth itself, whose basis 
in reality is postulated. The form in which the idea is expressed, 
— the speculations, symbols, and dogmas, to which it leads — with 
these psychology is not concerned. Psychology has only to show 
how the religious feeling, like the ethical and other feelings, is 
determined in its development partly by intellectual influence, 
partly by the opposition between egoism and sympathy. 

The relation between the ethical and religious feelings is indicated 
by this, that in the former we feel a spurring on of our power 
of action, in the latter we feel our dependence. If religion and 
ethics come into disagreement, the passive and the active poles 
of our nature are opposed. This disagreement may arise in 
the consciousness of the single individual, as also in the whole 
race, the feeUng of some individuals leading more in the ethical, 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 263 

that of others more in the rehgious direction. A definite and 
absolute separation of passivity and activity, of dependence and 
active force, is, however, as little possible in the province of feel- 
ing as in that of cognition. In receptivity we are always active, 
in activity always receptive. Even the forces which we exert in 
the strongest effort of our will, we feel as something given to us. 
We feel that a sustenance is bestowed upon us, without which we 
can do nothing, and that all our activity serves in reality only to 
promote and unfold that which is built up in us by quiet and un- 
conscious growth. The ethical feeling is religious through the 
" moment '' of resignation and reverence which is inseparable from 
it, and the religious feeling is ethical when it becomes more than 
egoistic superstition and sentimental enthusiasm. Kant and Fichte 
did great service in pointing out this close connection. In so 
doing they refined and ennobled the religious as well as the ethical 
feeling, and opened up the way to their more perfect harmony. 

9. The disinterested feelings presuppose that ideation and im- 
agination are sufficiently developed for the object of feeling to be 
retained as something that has its independent value. Only in this 
way can unselfish love, ethical and religious feeling arise. But even 
apart from their object and content, idea and imagination are of 
importance for feeling. The special activity of ideation and of 
imagination may become a source of special feelings. 

Cognition is from the first in the service of instinct and impulse. 
The thoughts are spies of the instinct of self-preservation. Know- 
ledge is valued as a means to power. At this stage there arises 
no properly intellectual feelmg. Even where what is sought is 
not external power or advantage, but mental freedom and in- 
dependence, the feeling excited by the activity of cognition is 
not purely intellectual. The intellectual feeling arises only when 
the relation among the ideas becomes the determining factor, 
quite apart from the internal or external consequences which 
cognition has for us. The presupposition is that the struggle 
for existence is not too hard and peremptory in its demands. 
Further, so great a multitude of ideas must have been formed 
that they can arrange themselves primarily according to their 
own laws, without immediate intervention of feelings and im- 
pulses. There then arises joy in agreement, sequence, and con- 
nection, and a feeling of pain at discord, contradiction, and lack of 
connection, and this pleasure or pain is felt not merely because our 
standard of truth is maintained or disres^arded, but because in 



264 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

harmony or discord itself there is something immediately satisfying 
or painful. Under this head comes also the delight in new facts 
and discoveries. Even if these upset opinions that previously held 
good and so excite disquiet and doubt^ they yet open up a wider 
vista and point to a connection larger than any hitherto suspected. 

As there are musical and poetical natures, so are there also 
intellectual natures. To these latter self-contradiction, confusion, 
and want of connection are just as painful as false notes and 
wretched verses to the former. 

The CBsthetic feeling is in some of its forms related to the 
intellectual. Pleasure in symmetry and rhythm, generally in the 
form of phenomena, finds its explanation in the ease and clear- 
ness with which the percepts arrange themselves. The cognitive 
faculties operate here without inhibitive contradiction, command 
their material as in play. The higher sensations (colours and 
sounds) excite, as has been seen, moods which are differentiated 
from the general vital feeling. This is still more the case with 
combinations and groups of colours and sounds. 

The feeling for beauty comes into play even in the animal 
kingdom, for colours, sourids, scent, and rhythmical movement 
are employed as means of allurement in courtship. Even in man 
the feeling of love excites the imagination to a greater freedom 
and boldness, and opens the eyes to colours and forms. At this 
stage beauty is only a means, as truth is so long as the cognition 
works only in the service of the instinct of self-preservation. But 
through the psychological process already described, that which 
was originally only an opening for the instinct may become an 
independent end. This aesthetic development goes in some 
measure hand in hand with the general development of sym- 
pathy. The two support one another ; the power of unselfish 
devotion is common to both. 

In the pleasure of self-adornment (with feathers, pearls, bits or 
bone, or by tattooing), there is exhibited in even the lowest human 
races an esthetic feeling. The next step is delight in weapons 
and other implements, apart from their use. These are fancifully 
worked and ornamented with pictures. Hence the very instru- 
ments for carrying on the struggle for existence become sources 
of pleasure. And as with the instruments, so with their employ- 
ment. When imperative necessity has been satisfied and the 
exertion recovered from, an impulse arises to movement for its 
own sake. The wild animal plays, if it is not troubled by hunger, 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 265 

fatigue or danger. The savage plays at warfare, and finds an outlet 
for his recovered energies in violent movements. In play, which 
arose as a means of employing the " superabundance of force," 
Schiller {Uber die ^sthetische Erziehung des Menschen^ letter 27) 
saw the germ of all art, a thought which Herbert Spencer has 
attempted to work out. 

The sesthetic feeling has thus grown out of the instincts which 
lead to the preservation of the individual and of the race. It 
presupposes a superfluity of energy, which is not needed in the 
struggle for existence, and may consequently be disposed of in 
other ways. But this gives merely the material. The special way 
in which it is employed is dependent upon the intellectual develop- 
ment. If excitations are to produce an aesthetic effect, there must 
be a certain articulateness of sense organ, so that fine gradations 
may be apprehended instead of all sensations being absorbed in 
the general vital feeling. It must be possible to have free play of 
colours, forms, sounds, and movements. The direct excitation is 
not, however, enough. To produce an aesthetic effect, it must not 
only make itself felt in its strength, kind and form, but its effect 
must also be able to branch out in consciousness, inciting a 
wealth of ideas and moods, clear or obscure. In an aesthetic 
effect, therefore, a distinction may be made between the im- 
mediate element acting directly, and the associations excited.^ 
In music the direct factor prevails, in poetry the associative ; 
the plastic and pictorial arts stand in this respect between the 
two. The feelings excited by sound and rhythm, by the rise 
and fall, the strife and harmony, of sounds, have a vague and 
general character, and do not necessarily arouse definite ideas. 
The strong influence of music on feeling depends upon this very 
freedom and depth of mood, which results from the fact that 
the whole audible expression of feeling is recalled without the 
definite occasion or object which in every individual case excites it. 
This is why musical compositions admit of such different inter- 
pretations ; to one and the same direct element very many and 
varied associative elements may correspond. The pictorial and 
plastic arts make an approach to music, the more they take effect 
by play of colours and harmony of form. But here the definite 
subject, the individual shapes, to be represented, bring definite 
requisitions. Their forms must be recognisable and their situations 

1 Fechner, Vorschule der y^sthetik ("Preliminary Studies in ^Esthetics "), Leipzic, 
1876, chs. 9 — 13. 



266 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

intelligible. So that here combinations of ideas and historical 
memories are necessary to true immediate apprehension. Poetry, 
finally, operates chiefly through the ideas and feelings excited ; the 
direct factor is a means only. It gives what music may not give — 
the definite feeling with its full content of thought and of imagina- 
tion ; and it gives what the pictorial and plastic arts cannot give — 
the historical development of characters and actions. In music 
the sensations, in the plastic arts the percepts, in poetry the free 
ideas are the forms of cognition which essentially determine the 
character of the feeling. In all its various forms art affords an 
opportunity of exercising and utilizing powers which were originally 
asserted in the struggle for existence. There remains consequently 
the closest interaction between art and real life ; the ideal and the 
practical activity of the mental powers pass one into the other, 
mutually prepare for one another. Art grows out of the natural 
exercise of the powers, and in its turn modifies these. With this 
relation the ethical import of art is closely connected ; for the 
powers exercised in artistic play are, if not in the same individual 
yet in the race, ever utilized afresh in the ever-continued struggle 
for existence. 

It accords very well with the theory of the origin of art out of 
the struggle for existence, that the sense for artistic beauty pre- 
cedes the sense for natural beauty. Art is closer to man than 
nature ; the one is his own work which he cannot disclaim, while 
the other may for a long time appear to him a foreign, inimical, or 
indifferent power. Children and savages have as a rule no sense 
for the beauty of nature. All that is connected with man and his 
achievements affords interest, but nature interests only so far as it 
is serviceable to human ends. From the primitive, practical stand- 
point a beautiful country is the same as a fruitful one, fruitful, that 
is, in corn and grass. Peasants marvel at the pleasure taken by 
tourists in visiting waste heaths, sandy downs, and mountains. 
A distinguished American traveller said to an Englishman : " Your 
country is very beautiful ; in many parts one can travel for miles 
without seeing a single tree not enclosed." The feeling for what 
is wild, sublime, and romantic in nature has arisen through effect 
of contrast : it was inevitable that the progress of civilization and 
the increasing contrast between town and country should arouse 
a longing for free and undisturbed nature, especially where it is 
bold and reckless. This sense and this longing are especially 
found, therefore, in periods of hyper-refinement (the close of 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 267 

antiquity, the i8th century). It presupposes, however, not only 
weariness of town Hfe and civiHzed society, but also a rich life 
of thought and feeling, which finds in the character of the land- 
scape, in its shades of light and colour and form, a mood in 
harmony with its own. Rousseau was the first to really arouse the 
feeling for nature in the great mass of people, especially for wild 
undisturbed nature, and this is closely connected with his energetic 
defence of the independence and importance of the life of feeling 
generally. He discovered the mountain landscape, which had 
previously excited in the minds of most men only horror and 
dread. He taught us to turn our backs on human life and to 
listen to the language of nature. Delight in nature appears as at 
once the highest stage of development of the aesthetic feeling and 
one of the best examples of disinterested sympathy.^ 

Two special aesthetic feelings, the sense of the sublime and the 
sense of the ludicrous, will be presently treated of more closely, 
since they will serve as good examples to illustrate the general 
psychological laws of the life of feeling. This work aims at no 
description and classification of all feelings, but at an inquiry into 
the general psychology of feeling." If an account of the individual 
feelings is desired, it is to be found in Bain's Ejnotions and Will, 
in Nahlowksy's Gefiihlsleben (" Life of Feeling"), in A. Horwicz's 
Psychologische Analyse?! ("Psychological Analyses''), and in Sib- 
bern^s Psykologisk Patologi ("Psychological Pathology"). 



D, — The Physiology and the Biology of Feeling. 

I. If it is true that we can distinguish between cognition and 
feeling only by means of abstraction, and that every concrete state 
of consciousness is composed both of cognitive elements and 
of feeling elements, there is no reason to expect cognition and 
feeling to be linked with the activity of different cerebral organs. 
The case was necessarily different as long as the procedure was from 
the notion of different parts or faculties of the mind. Thus Plato 

^ Cf. as to the historical development of the sense for nature : Friedlander, Die 
Entivickehcng des Gefiihls filr das Romantische in der NaUtr iju Gegensatz zjun 
Antiken Nat7irgefuhl {^'' Tho. Development of the Feeling for the Romantic in Nature as 
Contrasted with the Feeling for Nature of the Ancients"). In 2nd vol. of his Sittenge- 
schichte Routs ("History of Roman Customs"). A Biese, Die Entzuickehi?ig des 
NaUcrgefiihls bei den Griechen uiid Rdmern(^'''Y\\.Q. Developmesnt of the Feeling for 
Nature among the Greeks and Romans"), Kiel, 1882 — 1884. 



268 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

placed thought in the head, the feeling of courage and honour in 
the breast, and the sensuous impulses in the lower part of the 
body. Aristotle attributed all feeling of pleasure and pain (as also 
all sensation) to the heart, while the activity of pure reason was, 
in his view, united to no corporeal function. In later times 
Descartes and his disciples (Willis and Malebranche) placed feeling, 
together with all other phenomena of consciousness, in the brain, 
and in this, as in so many other points, anticipated modern 
physiology. The ancient theory of the opposition between brain 
and heart, as running parallel with the opposition between under- 
standing and feeling, was not, however, so easy to suppress. It 
was grounded in what seems to be the teaching of immediate 
experience. Every violent movem.ent of feeling is accompanied 
by sensations in the chest and lower part of the body, the heart 
beats louder, breathing stops or is accelerated, the digestion is 
affected ; in short, emotion strongly interferes with the vegetative 
functions. Even at the present day Bichat says : " Everything 
seems to prove that the organic life is the goal at which the 
passions end, and the centre from which they start.^' In his 
opinion the brain is the seat of cognition, and " is never affected by 
the passions, whose sole seat is in the viscera" (namely, at one 
time the liver, at another the lungs, the heart, the spleen, or the 
stomach) .1 Charles Bell and Gall appear to have been the first in 
the present century to give the brain as the seat of feeling as well 
as of the understanding and the other phenomena of consciousness. 
GalFs notion that the different parts of the brain could be exhibited 
as organs of different special feelings (self-love, reverence, hope, 
benevolence, etc.) lacked all physiological probability. As has 
been seen in an earlier chapter (IL 4), it has not yet been possible 
to prove any localization of higher functions in the cerebrum, and 
the advocates of the theory of localization (as H. Munk) expressly 
declare that sensuous perception only, not intelligence (the syn- 
thesizing ideational activity), is localized. Since the development 
of feeling is so closely linked with cognition, there is just as little 
reason to expect a special localization of it as of cognition. In the 
different forms of feeling, as in the different forms of cognition, the 
same cerebral cells may be conceived as acting in conjunction, 
only in different degrees and under different forms of combina- 
tion. And as feeling seems to arise and to develop more slowly 
than cognition, it must be supposed that it is physiologically 

1 Recherches Physiologiqjies sur la Vie et la Mort^ Paris, part viii. p. 71, 



vi] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 269 

represented by greater extension of the nerve-process in the 
brain-substance. 

An elementary feeling may, however, arise, even when the higher 
cerebral organs are wanting. A rat, which has lost its cerebrum, 
its optic thalami, and corpus striatum, takes alarm when the cry of 
a cat is imitated, precisely as it does in an uninjured condition. 
The elementary, instinctive feeling of fear {cf. A, 3, ^), may also, 
like elementary sensation, arise without function of the cerebrum. 
This is perhaps also true of certain pathological manifestations of 
feeling, which do not stand in connection with mental activity,-^ as 
also of the elementary feeling of pain. 

But this much is at any rate correct in the older idea of the con- 
nection of feeling with the vegetative organs, that these latter really 
play an important part in every feeling, even if they are not its 
physiological seat. Feeling makes greater demands on the nerve 
centres than cognition, and the consequent tension finds a vent by 
distributing itself over a larger or smaller number of the remaining 
parts of the organism. While the preponderance of the cognitive 
elements announces itself by all possible energy being concen- 
trated in the brain, so that the rest of the organism is kept as 
quiet and passive as possible, the state determined by feeling has, 
on the contrary, the tendency to distribute itself. From the brain 
the effect is transmitted to the heart, which may on violent emotion 
even quite cease to beat, so that death ensues. Violent and sudden 
fright, anger, sorrow, or joy, may be in this way deadly. If the 
effect of joy is identical with that of sorrow or of anger, it is 
because in all these cases what really takes effect is the surprise, 
the overwhelming astonishment, which is closely related in its 
symptoms to dread. If the excitement is less violent, the heart 
begins after a short pause to beat more quickly than before, and 
so despatches a more powerful stream of blood to the brain, which 
in this way feels the reaction of its own movement. In warm- 
blooded animals this reaction of the heart on the brain is stronger 
than in cold-blooded, and in higher animals stronger than in lower. 
In man the reaction is noticeable for a second or two. Not only 
the heart, but other internal organs also, are affected in consequence 
of the violent movement of the brain. The violent beating of the 
heart in trouble and fright is explained by some as due to the sudden 
contraction of the arteries, which thus cause greater obstruction to 

1 Cf. Vulpian, Physiologic du Systeme Nerveux, Paris, 1866, p. 549 ; where such 
elementary feelings are ascribed to \.\v& pons Varolii {J>rottcberance annulaire). 



270 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

the flow of blood, so that the heart must work harder. The sudden 
turning pale in fright shows, at any rate, that such contraction does 
take place. In other cases the vascular muscles are expanded, so 
that a richer stream of blood is despatched (blushing). The emotion 
may also affect the lachrymal glands (sorrow), the bowels (fear), 
the liver (anger), the respiratory organs (terror), etc. Emotion may 
effect further the augmentation or diminution of the excitability of 
the motor-centres (tetanus, paralysis, St. Vitus's dance), but, con- 
versely, may sometimes lead to recovery.^ Even on the voluntary 
muscles emotion acts immediately. The feeling of pleasure is 
accompanied by tension and firmness of the muscular system, an 
upright bearing, a frank and free glance ; the feeling of pain by a 
loose and sunken bearing, bent head and downcast eyes. The 
one opens the mind to the external world, the other shuts it up 
within itself. The instinctive character of emotion and its close 
relation to the expressions of the will are here clearly exhibited 
{cf. IV. 7, d). 

The discharge may thus proceed in different directions. It 
occurs the more readily in a given direction, the nearer the motor- 
centres of the organ or part of the body concerned lie to the 
centres which play a part in the rise of the feeling, and the more 
frequently that organ is called into activity. — In the first of these 
respects, the discovery of the vasomotor centres in the cerebrum 
proper throws a light on the close connection between emotion and 
contraction or relaxation of the vascular muscles. It is further 
connected with this, that the muscles of the eye and face can 
express emotion even when the rest of the body expresses calm. 
Very violent emotion may affect the whole body. — In the organs 
mentioned, the second point is also of importance. The centres 
of vegetative life situated in the medulla oblongata are in un- 
interrupted activity so long as life endures. They possess in 
consequence the highest degree of excitability, and are affected by 
the slightest changes either in the brain or in the other organs. In 
a similar way is to be explained the fact that emotion chiefly affects 
organs which are in a diseased or highly strained condition.^ 

1 Claude Bernard, "Etude sur la Physiologic du Coeur" {Revtie des Deux Mondes^ 
1865; reprinted xn. La Science Experimentale)\ Wundt, Physiol. Psychol.^ ii., p. 330 
(3rd ed., ii., p. 506); Ranke, Physiologie des Menschen, 3rd ed., p. 339; C. Lange, 
Kygmarvens Patologie ("Pathology of the Spinal Cord"), pp. 255, 391, seq. ;i;Darwin, 
Expression of E^notions, passim. 

2 Domrich, Die psychischen Ztistdnde,^ Jena, 1849, pp. 212-217 5 Spencer, Physiology 
of Laughter {Essays^ vol. i.) ; Landois, Physiol, des Menschen, 2nd ed., p. 773; 
Freusberg, Ober die Erregung und Hemmung der Thdtigkeit der ne?vosen Zentral- 
organe {Pflugers Archiv, 1875), p. 185. 



Vij THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 27I 

The movement of feeling strengthens itself, since it takes a 
circular course from the brain to the peripheral organs and back 
again to the brain. It has sometimes been desired, especially from a 
spiritualistic standpoint, that the feeling proper should be sharply 
distinguished from the reaction from the internal organs. This latter 
'' moment*^ comes, indeed, as a special case, under the head of the 
general vital feeling, and, as already observed (A. 3, a), the condition 
of the vegetative organs may excite a feeling similar in character 
to that excited by external experiences and mental influences. 
But, although the two stages in the development of a feeling are 
separated by a small interval of time, there is no reason, in a 
psychological connection, for drawing a sharp line between them. 
They fuse at once, and only the two in conjunction form the 
feeling in its full character. In a medicinal, didactic, and moral 
connection, it may on the other hand be useful to keep the two 
stages apart. In different individuals they appear in different 
strength. In some the effect upon the internal organs is rela- 
tively weak, even with violent emotion ; in others inordinately 
strong. 

If the feeling can be very strong and deep, even violent, while 
the effect upon the internal organs is very weak — and this is 
especially the case with the higher (intellectual, sesthetic, ethical, 
and religious) feelings — it is not possible to regard feeling as consist- 
ing merely of the sensations which arise in consequence of the effect 
upon the internal organs. This conception, which would lead back 
in a measure to Bichat^s theory, and which forms the extreme 
opposite to the spiritualistic conception of feeling, was recently 
expounded in an interesting paper by William James (Mmd, April, 
1884), and carried to the extreme proposition that we do not cry 
because we are sad, but are sad because we cry.^ If, however, 
feeling is thus conceived as a sort of sensation, the special character 
of the feeling elements (cf. IV. 2, and VI. A. 2) as opposed to the 
other elements of consciousness fails to assert itself. 

2. Difficulties even greater than the physiological localization of 
feeling are presented by the question as to which property of the 
organic process it is to which the feeling corresponds. Since the 
nature of the nerve-process is not known, only a general hypothesis 

1 In a very Interesting and clever work Om Sindshevdgelser ("On Emotions of the 
Mind "), Copenhagen, 1885, the Danish nerve pathologist, C. Lange, has laid down a 
theory similar to that of James. The writer attempts to trace back the whole physiology 
of feeling to the excitations of the vasomotor centre, conceiving all other organic reflexes 
as dependent on the vasomotor. 



272 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

can be reached. There is, however, an interest in raising the 
question, since it throws a Hght on the importance of feehng in the 
economy of hfe. 

Aristotle conceived the feehng of pleasure as linked with every 
natural and normal activity of life, and this conception is still the 
most general and most probable.^ In feeling we have the inner- 
most state of the conscious individual as determined by the 
influences received from without and by the activity exercised by the 
individual himself. It is but a step to perceive in the contrast 
between pleasure and pain — the original contrast in the world of 
feeling — an expression of the contrast between progression and 
retrogression of the vital process. As a general rule it may be 
laid down that pleasure indicates increased activity of life, higher 
and freer employment of energy. The feeling of pleasure is thus 
attendant on the normal functioning of the several organs, of the 
brain and the nervous system, as well as of the muscles and the 
vegetative organs. If, on the contrary, greater demands are made 
than an organ can satisfy, or if, on the other hand, an organ has not 
sufficient scope for its energy, then pain is felt. Since all function 
is connected with the setting free of tension, of the accumulated 
organic capital, one and the same degree of activity will be asso- 
ciated at different times with pleasure and with pain, according 
to the energy which stands at our disposal. 

A slightly different view has been recently propounded by 
Fechner. Since pleasure and pain are not only quantitatively, but 
also qualitatively, different from one another, they must, according 
to Fechner, correspond to processes which are different, not only in 
degree, but also in form. He therefore supposes pleasure to depend 
on the agreement, pain on the want of agreement (incommensur- 
ability) of the vibrations of the nerves, with which, in his opinion, 
conscious life is linked.^ As has been said, it is impossible to 
decide this either way. Fechner's theory leads practically to the 
same results as that founded by Aristotle, for it must be pre- 
supposed that the agreement named indicates organic progres- 
sion, want of agreement retrogression. If discord wholly prevails, 
life will be dissolved, just as it will be when overpowered by stimuli, 
when its powers are overstrained or shut off from all activity. 
Pleasure thus appears in any case as the expression of heightened 

1 In Leon Dumont, Theorie Scientifique de la Sensibilite, Paris, 1875, pp. 26-63, ^ 
general view of the different theories is to be found. 

2 Vorschule der ^sthetik (" PreHminary Studies in Esthetics"), i., pp. 12, 79 ; ii., 
p. 266. 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 273 

life, pain as the expression of retrogression and as the forerunner 
of death. 

It is, of course, not meant that there is in pleasure and pain an 
actual reflection or comparison of how far we are advancing or 
retrogressing. Such reflection is impossible, at any rate, in the 
simplest forms of feeling. Originally pleasure and pain announce 
themselves ; and only afterwards, under the presupposition of 
sufficient intellectual development, is it possible to speculate as to 
their import. 

3. The theory referred to is borne out by the fact that excitations 
which cause dissatisfaction and pain are, as a rule, also injurious. 
Of pain from blows and wounds, where the organism is directly 
mutilated, this is self-evident. Similarly as regards fatigue and over- 
powering sensuous stimuli. Bitter substances have a tendency 
to decompose the organic tissue ; the satisfaction in a sweet taste 
finds an explanation in the fact that sugar is contained in most 
of the vegetable constituents of human nutriment.^ 

It might, on the other hand, appear to be a serious argument against 
the Aristotelian theory,that pleasure does sometimes accompany what 
is injurious, pain what is useful. But this argument only leads to 
a more precise statement of the theory. In the feeling of pleasure 
or pain, only the partial and momentary effect of the excitation or 
of the activity finds expression. A palatable poison effects momen- 
tary advance in one part of our organic nature. Later, when it is 
diffused in the organism, it unhappily exhibits other properties 
which threaten life. But this does not make the feeling of pleasure 
in the taste a deception ; a thermometer does not show the degree 
of warmth of some hours hence, but only of the present moment.^ 

This considerably narrows the general rule that pleasure is a 
token of progression, pain of retrogression. From Aristippus 
we are referred to Epicurus ; life is no longer to be judged 
according to the pleasure or pain of the moment, but according to 
the duration and final victory of pleasure. It must, however, be 
required of the theory that it shall be able to explain why the 
pleasure or pain of the moment is no sure criterion. It is not a 
sufficient answer to say, with Lotze, that purposiveness (teleology) 
in nature does not necessarily, but only in individual favourable 
cases, extend to absolutely unaccustomed events, or to pathologically 
altered circumstances. The question is : What is, then, the reason 

1 Grant Allen, Physiological Esthetics, London, 1877, p. 69, seq: 

2 Cf. Lotze, Medizinische Psychologies p. 237, seq. 



274 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

that purposiveness does not extend farther ? It cannot be from 
pure caprice. And this naturally leads to the question, why the 
purposiveness is there at all. 

This is one of the points on which the evolution hypothesis 
throws a clear light, where formerly obscurity reigned.^ Feeling is 
not understood, so long as it is kept completely isolated from the 
will ; in the foregoing it was shown also that feeling, instinct, and 
impulse could not be separated. The feeling of pleasure leads to 
an endeavour to retain and appropriate that which excites the 
pleasure ; pain leads to an endeavour to remove and to defend 
ourselves against what has caused it. This rule applies to instinct 
as well as to conscious will ; the difference is only in the nature 
and the cause of the pleasure and of the pain. If, now, a being 
were so organized as to feel pleasure in everything injurious to him 
and pain in everything useful, he would not be able to live. Natural 
selection already therefore brings about a certain harmony of feeling 
with the conditions of life. Obviously, however, this harmony is not 
perfect. To absolutely strange or very rare circumstances the organ- 
ism cannot adapt itself Pleasure in what is injurious is thus the 
sign of an imperfect development, which may perhaps be gradually 
remedied. Such imperfections arise in the nature of things when 
the relations of life are suddenly changed, especially when there is a 
transition to very complex and rriany-sided relations. Thus it may be 
said of men, that even yet their life of feeling is not adapted to the 
problems and demands of social life. Civilization is only some 
thousands of years old, even where it has existed longest, and it 
was preceded perhaps by myriads of years in which animal and 
barbaric impulses prevailed. It is, then, little wonder that pleasure 
and pain will not serve straight away as safe guides, and even that 
a general rule the exact contrary to that quoted has been formulated, 
and pleasure regarded as a danger and a misfortune, and pain as 
useful. Even the single individual often experiences that pain has 
a " secretly educating power ^^ ; in education pain is regarded as a 
good, in so far as it affords a timely warning and restraint. In the 
evolution of the race, similarly, pain serves as a warning voice, 
though only the ascetic line of thought attributes to it a virtue in 
itself. As feeling is brought, through the struggle for existence, 
into a certain harmony with the conditions of life, so the struggle 
for existence also teaches us not to trust the feeling of the moment, 
but to seek a higher standard. 

1 Cf. Spencer, Principles of Psychology^ part ii., chap. 9. 



VI] THE, PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 275 

The general rule that pleasure indicates the progression, pain 
the retrogression, of life, is as applicable to the higher ideal feelings 
as to the lower. In sympathy and in the ethico-religious feelings, the 
individual feels himself a part of a greater whole, a member of an 
organism whose pulsations he experiences within himself. He no 
longer separates his interest from that of the larger organism. 
What promotes the life of the latter promotes also the life of the 
individual.^ 



E. — The Validity of the Law of Relativity for the Feelings. 

I. If the distinction which we make between cognition and feel- 
ing is just, there must be certain laws which apply only to the one 
species of mental elements and not to the other. It has, indeed, 
been shown that this is so, for in the province of the feelings 
nothing is found corresponding to the laws of association of ideas. 
A feeling may enter into association with one or with several ideas ; 
but there is scarcely a direct association between feelings. On the 
other hand, both cognition and feeling are elements in every state of 
consciousness ; it is therefore to be expected that there are laws 
which are common to both species of elements, because they are 
derived from the general nature of consciousness. This too we find 
confirmed, the law of relativity proving itself, by its validity also in 
the province of feeling, to be a fundamental psychological law. It 
makes its appearance here even more plainly than in the province 
of cognition. 

The law of relativity, which was declared a universal psycho- 
logical principle by Hobbes (see II. 5), was even earlier propounded 
with respect to the feelings of pleasure and pain by Cardanus.^ Some- 
what later Spinoza developed the same application in a clear way. 
As he expresses it, pleasure is felt in progress of perfection or of 
energy, pain in its retrogression ; but perfection in itself does not excite 
pleasure ; for, if man were born perfect, he would feel no pleasure in 
it. Similarly with imperfection ; only one who is acquainted with 
perfection is troubled by it. This, as will be seen, is Fechner's law 
applied to feeling.^ As his precursors in this connection, Fechner 

1 Cf. Die Grundlage der humatien Ethik ("The Basis of Humane Ethics.") 
p. 19. seq. 

'^ Dumont, Theorie S cientifique de la Sensibilite, p. 27, seq. 

3 Some of the examples given in V. A. 3, might be equally well employed to illustrate 
the law of relativity in the province of feeling. This is not surprising, as there is a very 
close connection between sensation and feeling. 

T 2 



276 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

himself names Bernouilli and Laplace. These mathematicians 
taught that the value of a thing could not be determined purely ob- 
jectively, but varied according to the relation of the thing to the 
interest of each several individual. The fortune physique must be 
distinguished from th.^ fortune morale. In physical fortune, the con- 
ditions of life of the individual on whom it is bestowed are left 
out of sight. A sum of ^50 denotes a physical fortune equally 
great for all. But for the possessor of ^50,000, the mental good 
fortune (that really felt) in this increase is very small as compared with 
what it is for one who possesses nothing, or who perhaps has debts 
which are driving him to despair. Psychologically, we have to do 
only with this " moral fortune ^^ ; for fortune to be purely " physical " 
can mean only that it will excite no real feeling of pleasure. 

2. Just as we distinguish between a colour and its different shades, 
which are partially determined by the relation to other colours, so 
pleasure and pain present themselves to us as fixed forms, although 
they are what they are only through contrast to one another. In 
his disposition each individual has a practical regulator, a level 
above which his feelings rise only in single instants, and below 
which it is the exception for them to sink. This disposition or 
fundamental frame of mind, in which we found earlier the basis of 
the real unity of consciousness (V. B, 5), is due partly to inherited 
tendencies, partly to experiences and circumstances. It is not 
necessary that it should be absolutely unchangeable throughout 
the whole life ; great transformations in it are possible, but if 
the continuity is not preserved, if the transition to another disposi- 
tion is quite sudden and groundless, the individual feels a stranger 
to himself, having lost his accustomed regulator. 

The feeling, then, is only given in its full strength, when it is 
contrasted with another feeling. That we do not always notice the 
part which contrast plays in the feelings — a part far greater than in 
sensa:tions and ideas, because the life of feeling is stamped through- 
out by the contrast between pleasure and pain — is without doubt 
to be explained by the fact that we turn as a rule with all our 
attention to the new feeling, which acquires its strength by con- 
trast with the fading feeling. The vanquished is forgotten in the 
victor. Precisely because a preceding pain lends greater vitality 
to present joy, is it easily passed by without a thought ; ^ this is also 

1 St. John, xvi,, 21 : " A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is 
come : but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, 
for joy that a man is born into the world." 



VJ] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 277 

the case when not actual pain, but only a smaller degree of satisfac- 
tion, forms the background of the new emotion. 

Just as complementary colours not only enhance one another, 
but also pass easily one into the other, so one feeling often pre- 
pares the way for the contrary feeling. The transition from a strong 
feeling into its opposite is effected more easily than the transition 
from indifference into a strong feeling. In the first case the source, 
so to speak, is already opened, and it is merely a question of turn- 
ing the current into another direction ; in the latter case the vital 
force has first to be set going. — Often a feeling can be cultivated 
only indirectly ; thus piety and obedience to authority usually 
precede the true ethical feeling in its integrity and indepen- 
dence. Even the strong contrasts of feeling (pleasure— pain, 
love — hate, hope — fear, veneration — contempt) prepare the way for 
one another. Weariness of the one side of the contrast creates the 
desire to experience the other, especially at a stage of development 
where the suggestions of the moment are immediately obeyed, or 
in a state of strong nervous exaltation {cf. the German saying, 
" Hiinmelhock jauchzend — zuin Tode betriibt^^ or " Who laughs 
before breakfast will cry before night.^') Similarly in the course of 
a mental illness, there is often a point at which extreme feelings of 
unhappiness, delusion and suspicion are suddenly converted into 
excessive joy at imaginary power and glory.^ That " extremes 
meet'' is nowhere better exemplified than in the life of feeling, 
where the sharpest and most important contrasts are indigenous. 
There are natures which cannot attain to peace of mind until their 
passion has been expended. To many the voice of conscience 
becomes audible only in contrast to a strong stirring of wild 
impulses ; the temptation, strange as it sounds, must therefore be 
very great in order to be overcome. Often conscience awakes only 
after a crime has been committed, and then leads instantaneously 
to self-accusation.2 

The physiological basis of this property of feeling is to be found 
in the vital conditions of the nervous system. The energy of the 
nerve-organs is limited ; if exhausted by a continuing influence, the 
organs demand either rest or a difterent kind of stimulation. Con- 
sequently pains are intermittent ; even though their cause persists, 
there comes a point where the capacity for suffering is for the time 

1 Examples given by Icleler, Biographieen Geisteskrajiker ("Biographies of JNIental 
Patients"), Berlin, 1841. 

■-^ Bischoff, ISIerkivih'dige Krwiinalrechtsfdlle ("Remarkable Cases of Criminal 
Law") vol. 2, Hanover, 1835, p. 43, scq. 



278 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

exhausted, and then a period of rest begins, during which force is 
gathered for renewed suffering.^ Even mental suffering and joy 
are manifested thus rhythmically ; to violent outbursts succeed 
quieter moods, which again give way to momentary passion. 
Herbert Spencer has drawn attention to the fact, that expressions 
of emotion by dancing, poetry and music, bear a rhythmical 
character.^ 

The feelings of pleasure and pain connected with the most in- 
termittent organic functions are the most violent. The feelings 
linked with the preservation of the individual and of the race 
may be in the highest degree violent, because the deep-seated 
organic conditions on which they depend are subject to a natural 
rhythm. The functions of the special senses (in particular of sight 
and of hearing) are carried on more continuously, and are con- 
sequently subject to no such great contrasts [cf, A. 3^). — It must, 
however, be remembered that a feeling can be very strong without 
being violent (IV. ^jd). 

As finite beings we have only a limited capacity for pleasure as 
well as for pain. The profound idea of the ancients as to the envy 
of the gods has thus a real basis. Happiness leads through its 
own excess to unhappiness, when it consumes the elasticity of our 
nature. But against this idea must, by force of the same law of 
contrast, be set that of the compassion of the gods, since pain also 
exhausts itself. 

This changing play, which enhances the pleasurable feelings, 
but also threatens their existence, and seems, indeed, capable of 
dividing mental life into contending forces, has often being regarded 
as an imperfection, and the human mind has framed in contrast 
to it the image of an ideal state, in which the perfect feeling of 
blissfulness is broken by no contrasts or changes. Even Spinoza, 
who, so long as he speaks as a psychologist, shows so full and 
correct a comprehension of the law of relativity, describes at the 
conclusion of his Ethics a state of perfection, where all contrast, 
all change, and all transition are to be done away. But no one has 
ever been able to give a definite positive content to this ideal state. 
Such a thought and its influence are psychologically intelligible 
only through the contrast to the suffering of this present life. So 
that the fact that it should ever have arisen, is itself a corroboration 
of the law of relativity. 

1 Ch. Richet, Recherchcs Experwientales et C Uniques sur la Sensibilite, Paris, 1877, 

PP- 303-307- 

^ First Principles, part ii., chap. 10. The Rhythm of Motion, § 36. 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OP^ FEELING 279 

3. It has already been observed (VI. A. 2 and B^i d) that feeling 
is slower in its origin than cognition. Only with very strong and 
sudden stimuli is this temporal difference annulled. But the state 
which these induce, is characterized by an analyzable merging of 
cognitive and feeling elements. Simple shocks similar to the 
elementary sensations, out of which according to an hypothesis 
already mentioned (V. A, 2) all special sensations arise, may be 
attributed with as much justice to feeling as to cognition. Some- 
thing similar holds good, at a higher stage, of all wonder and sur- 
prise^ of every impression of the new and extraordinary. From its 
strong contrast to the preceding state or to the remaining 
conscious content, our own new state of mind plays at least as 
great a part as the content of the new percept or idea. This, 
in a psychological connection, is the distinguishing feature of all 
mental excitement. By means of the fresh current of feeling, the 
new cognition is presented with extraordinary clearness, and in 
an especially attractive light. Therefore the ancients taught that 
wonder is the beginning of all wisdom. But it is the beginning 
only. For from this introductory phenomenon many roads may be 
entered upon. Either the feeling element so gains the upper hand 
that restlessness and enthusiasm make clear appropriation and 
deep penetration impossible, or it acts as an inspiriting force and 
leads to comprehensive and persevering work in the service of 
the new idea. 

In some cases wonder turns to fear, disappointment and con- 
tempt, or to joy, love and veneration, according to the nature of that 
which has excited wonder. It therefore appears as an introduction 
to very different psychological processes, and it was so far with a 
correct notion at bottom, that Descartes and Malebranche, in their 
exposition of the feelings, permitted wonder to head the series as 
presupposition for every one of them. It is, however, more natural 
to form, with Bain, a special class of feelings, comprising wonder 
and other " emotions of relativity ,^^ in which the " moment " of 
relativity and of contrast, which takes effect in all our conscious 
states, absolutely determines, not only the strength and quality of 
the feeling, but also its nature and content. Of this class are the 
feelings of novelty or repetition, change or uniformity, liberty as 
opposed to restraint, health as opposed to illness (the feeling of 
convalescence), power as opposed to impotence. 

4. It is a necessary consequence of the law of relativity, that 
frequent repetition weakens the freshness and strength of the 



2So OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vl 

feeling. The background against which it stood out originally so 
vividly and forcibly, becomes of necessity ever less distinct ; the 
light and shade come to be distributed, so that the contrast 
gradually fails. This process is only one form of the general 
process of accommodation, which is proper to all life. Under all 
circumstances, a living creature endeavours to come into harmony 
with its surroundings. The effect of this upon feeling is, that 
enthusiasm is often succeeded b> indifferenceor carelessness, and is 
ultimately remembered as inexplicable. Accommodation, which 
provides for the execution of functions with a smaller expenditure 
of energy, has a subduing effect. While this is an economy and 
consequently a gain, when it turns on practical action, it is a loss 
when feeling is in question. The element of wonder present in 
every living feeling, seems to be absolutely lost on repetition. — 
That there must be repetition is involved in the fact that the 
experiences of a finite being are always limited ; the changes must 
necessarily form a circle. As previously shown, without repetition 
of experiences, conscious life would never develop beyond the 
stage of sensation {cf, V. ^. L 5. 1 1 ; Z>. 3). But not all sides of 
conscious life seem to be promoted by it. 

S. Kierkegaard has taken this physical law as the point from 
which to draw the line between aesthetic and ethical conduct of life. 
All excitement and all enthusiasm are sesthetic in character ; our 
attitude is that of enjoyment, when laid hold of by a strong 
influence. The self lets itself be carried away by the involuntary 
flood of feeling. But in the course of daily work, under the deaden- 
ing and subduing influence of repetition, it must be shown whether 
the feeling possesses any strength beyond that momentary flare up. 
Consequently for Kierkegaard the possibility of repetition is the 
fundamental ethical problem.^ 

While Kierkegaard treats the problem in a way which betrays a 
genius for psychological insight, it is striking to see with what zeal 
he turns his back on psychology. The problem cannot in his 
opinion be solved by means of psychology. " Repetition '^ he says 
(p. 92), " is something transcendental," by which he must mean that 

1 " He who wishes only to hope, is a coward ; only to remember, is voluptuous ; but he 
who desires repetition, is a man. . . . When existence has been explored to its depths, it 
will be seen whether there is courage to understand, and inclination to rejoice In, the fact 
that life is a repetition." — Gje?itagelsen. Et Forsog i den Experiuienteroide Psykologi, 
("Repetition. A Study in Experimental Psychology"), by Constantin Constantius. 
Copenhagen, 1843, p. 5. — The problem of repetition is re-introduced from another side by 
S. Kierkegaard, in his polemic, namely, against established Christianity as "a present, 
which has forgotten its origin." See Indovclse i Kristendom ("Practice of Christen- 
dom"), and the newspaper article Ojeblikket (" The Moment"). 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 281 

only an inexpliccable act of volitiori can overcome the difficulty. He 
has overlooked the fact that there is a psychological law of nature, 
on which the ethical requisition can be based — even as ethics in 
general, if it is neither to beat the air nor to make constant appeal 
to the supernatural, must build upon what is psychologically possible. 

It is only, indeed, in so far as feeling is a purely passive state that 
it can be deadened by repetition and custom. Active movements 
and dexterities, on the other hand, are perfected by repetition ; 
custom in these becomes practice. And to the active side of our 
nature belong, not only the power of moving the muscles, but also 
perception and thought, attention and will. Feeling is deadened 
by repetition precisely because the movement practised can 
gradually be executed unconsciously.^ So far, therefore, a decisive 
contrast between the conditions for feeling and for ideation would 
be maintained. Previous inquiries {B and C) have, however, taught 
us how the development of cognition is to the advantage of feeling. 
The purely elementary feelings, i.e. those produced by simple, 
definite sense-stimuli, cannot gain by repetition (any more than 
the simplest, immediate sensations). The ideal feelings, on the 
other hand, i.e. those linked with and determined by a larger or 
smaller set of ideas, may not only retain their full strength 
(though not perhaps their violence), but even gain in force by re- 
petition. The same sum of energy that is freed in the moment of 
excitement, may be freed later, only, so to speak, divided into 
several currents, no longer in a state of concentration. Feeling 
gains by repetition therefore in breadth and depth what it loses in 
freshness. During accommodation, the object of feeling discloses its 
nature, is seen from different points of view, while from the other 
side the various elements in the nature of the individual are brought 
into interaction with the object. Thus within the main relation 
there may be a variety of changing relations. Hence the feeling 
spreads over an ever larger part of life, and may be fed by many 
more sources than at first. This is the case, e.g., in the relation of 
people who live together. The inner growth of feeling is often 
apparent only when the relation is put to the test ; it may then 
sustain a reconversion from the distributed to the concentrated form, 
in which it will appear that the capital laid out has borne interest. 

The question comes to be, how rich and comprehensive is the con- 

1 The difference in the effect of repetition on the intellect and will, on the one hand, 
and on feeling, on the other, was insisted on by Hume {Treatise, ii., 3, 1), and Bichat 
{La Vie et la Mort, pp. 47-56). — Among later writers, Fries {Neue Kritik der Vernunft 
(" New Critique of Reason"), p. 36) treats this question very skilfully. 



282 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

tent with which feeling is linked. The narrower the self, i.e. everything 
which commands our interest, the more speedily are the possibilities 
of new and fresh feeling exhausted. In this the sympathetic feel- 
ings show their superiority over the egoistic. Comprehensive 
sympathy, interest directed to great and important objects, retain 
freshness in spite of the deadening influence of repetition and of 
rhythm. A feeling of this kind is a resuscitation of the natural 
sanguineness (V. B. 4), which begins by attributing w^orth and 
reality to each idea as it emerges, but which easily passes, under 
the influence partly of repetitions, partly of disappointments, into 
indifference or discouragement. 

A pretty example may be taken from Goethe's Briefe aus der 
Schweiz (" Letters from Switzerland"), to make clear the effect of 
repetition on feeling. — He is speaking of the sublime impressions 
on a journey in the Swiss mountains. — ^'A youth who journeyed 
with us from Basle observed he had not the same feeling as on the 
first occasion, and thought the first impressions the best. I was dis- 
posed, however, to say : when we have such a sight for the first time, 
the unaccustomed soul expands, and there is a painful happiness, an 
excess of delight, which stirs the soul and draws out blissful tears. 
Through this process the soul becomes greater without knowing it, 
and is no longer capable of that first sensation. Man thinks he 
has lost, but he has gained ; what he loses in pleasure, he gains in 
inner growth.^' 

Infallibly, much is lost that cannot be reproduced. The budding 
feeling is like the first breath of an infant, in which the lungs 
expand so as never again to be empty ; no later breath can, then, 
be like the first. To this extent repetition is impossible. Pes- 
simism is, however, quite unwarranted in treating this as pure loss ; 
looked at from another side, it is a great gain. It depends upon the 
view of life taken by each individual from which side he will choose 
to view the matter. 

5. This opposition between the effect of repetition and of accom- 
modation on the passive and on the active sides of feeling, leads us 
to recall the opposition which the older psychology (especially 
since Kant's admirable exposition in the Anthropologie, § 71) 
postulated between emotion {Affekf) and passion {^Leidens chaff). 
By emotion is understood a sudden boiling up of feeling, which for 
a time overwhelms the mind and prevents the free and natural 
combination of the cognitive elements. Passion (sentiment, dis- 
position), on the other hand, is the movement of feeling become 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 283 

second nature, deeply rooted by custom. In passion the impulsive 
element of feeling is especially prominent, and it stands con- 
sequently intermediate between feeling and will. What the 
emotion, with powerful expansive movement, is in one single 
instant, the passion is in the depths of the mind as a collected 
sum of force, which lies ready for employment. But quiet reflec- 
tion is not therefore excluded from passion ; on the contrary, 
the latter finds its expression in a thought which controls all the 
ideas. " Emotion,'^ says Kant, " takes effect as a flood which 
bursts its dam ; passion as a stream which wears for itself an ever 
deepening channel . . . emotion is like a fit of intoxication, which 
is slept off ; passion as a madness, brooding over one idea, which 
sinks in ever deeper.^' Often what in emotion was the means, 
becomes in passion the end. This is connected with the fact that the 
passion is often only a mechanical repetition or continuation of that 
which, in the moment of emotion, took possession of the mind with 
sudden and concentrated power. 

Feeling begins as emotion, and passes — if it finds sufficient food 
— into passion. Anger and sorrow are emotions, revengefulness 
and melancholy are passions. The deepest and most central 
current in human nature is the ruling passion, first determined and 
set going by the inherited disposition, and nourished, developed, 
and refined by all stir of feeling -and by experiences. — Repeti- 
tion has a different effect upon emotion and upon passion ; it 
weakens the one and feeds the other. This is connected with the 
fact that passion is of a more active nature, and more closely 
linked with definite and distinct ideas than is emotion. 

As emotion may prepare the way for passion, so may the latter 
take vent as emotion, although it may also gratify itself in a quiet 
and duly considered way. — By the way in which it finds satisfac- 
tion, passion may excite emotions of a different class. Thus 
the love of country will in a time of danger arouse the warlike 
spirit and love of battle. Or in the execution of a murder from 
cold-blooded self-interest, ferocious instincts may be excited and 
lead the murderer to ill-treat his victim in a w^ay that is useless for 
his purpose.^ 

1 C/1 Anselm von Fei\ti'ha.ch, Akten^^/dss/o^e Darstelhing Me7'kiv7i7'diger Verbrechen 
("Official Account of Remarkable Crimes"), Giessen, 1828, i., p. 93 : "It is, therefore, 
not to be regarded as a mere lying evasion and poor subterfuge, when murderers tell in 
their confession that they were mastered by a fury or frenz^^, which deprived them of the 
power of thinking, and carried them away with ungovernable power, so that they did not 
know at the time what they intended, and were afterwards unconscious of what they had 
done. ' • • ' Not everything that occurs in the commission of a crime, can be explained 
by the chief motive which led to it." 



284 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

The term passion is used in this connection in a narrower sense 
than that of ordinary language, where this definite distinction 
between emotion and passion is not made. At the same time we 
keep at a distance all moral valuation of the concepts emotion and 
passion. There are good as well as bad passions or emotions ; but 
both kinds have the same general psychological features, just as 
nutritive and poisonous plants may belong to the same family. 
Everything which is really to have power over us, must manifest 
itself as emotion'- or passion. Mere " reason '^ has no power in 
actual mental life, where the struggle is always between feelings. 
The frequent talk of the conflict of reason with the passions is con- 
sequently psychologically incorrect. No such conflict can take 
place directly. A thought can suppress a feeling only by exciting 
another feeling which is in a position to set aside the first. Among 
psychologists in modern times, Spinoza and Hume have more 
particularly insisted on this, while by Kant (in his systematic 
works), and still more by his followers, it has been overlooked. 
Greek psychology was even disposed to regard the matter from the 
exactly opposite side. When passion and reason were said to 
contend, it was really meant, according to Plato {Protagoras)^ that 
thought contended with thought ; passion being only a false kind 
of knowledge which was to be suppressed by the true. 

6. The law of relativity explains the constant, definite form of 
each individual feeling, and shows how one feeling prepares the 
way and may be of importance for another. But as in the sphere 
of intellect a shallow conception of the law of relativity leads to the 
conclusion, that everything is equally true or equally false, so in 
the sphere of feeling the conclusion has been drawn, that all 
pleasure is an illusion, because it results only from contrast to pain. 
It is on this assertion that Schopenhauer has grounded his pes- 
simistic philosophy. At the root of all consciousness there lies, 
according to his theory, a blind but unruly will or impulse, that 
clings to life and incites conscious beings to the preservation and 
farther propagation of their existence. All that lives and feels, 
desires above all things to live. This " Wille zinn Leben '' is not 
caused by life being good, by its affording pleasure and joy ; the 
relation, on the contrary, is such that life is supposed to bring happi- 
ness, because of the obscure power inciting us to cling to it.^ The 

1 Schopenhauer's predecessor, the ItaUan poet LeopardI, expresses the same thought : 
" All men will to live ; consequently they must find life beautiful and agreeable; they 
will to find it beautiful, and are enraged with the disturber of their peace who would 
admit it to be otherwise." (JDpJcsacles et Pcnsecs, Tra.ns. from the Italian by A. Dapples, 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 285 

so-called pleasure arises from the gratification of a need ; it is the 
need accompanied by pain which is positive ; pleasure, on the other 
hand, is negative, signifies only the cessation of the need. This is 
why the best things in life, — health, youth, and freedom, — are not 
valued while possessed ; only when they have vanished is their 
value apparent. 

Schopenhauer's theory stands in absolute contradiction with the 
biological importance of feeling. If there really existed an in- 
extinguishable desire of this kind, which cools only for a moment, 
to blaze up again the more violently, it would soon consume itself. 
Pain shows itself to be everywhere constantly connected with what 
is injurious to life or threatens its existence. Pain and dissatisfac- 
tion cannot, then, be what is fundamental and positive, something 
which during the struggle for existence is checked and interrupted 
by our experiences. If we propose to call the tendency to move- 
ment, which is present even before the dawning of consciousness, 
impulse or will, then impulse in this sense cannot in itself bring in 
dissatisfaction or pain. This can arise only when the impulse 
encounters a resistance greater than it can overcome. With the 
normal exercise of the organic functions there goes a fundamental 
mood of happiness, a feeling of ease and freedom, to which, how- 
ever, the attention is seldom directed, and which we usually notice 
only when it is succeeded by, or succeeds, a state of discomfort. 
Health, youth and liberty are good things, just because they 
facilitate the full development and employment of our powers. 
Diseased vital feeling soon cramps all our powers ; mental illness 
usually begins with disturbances and disease in the vital feeling. 
The importance and positive value of the vital feeling do not 
depend on its coming itself to the fore, but on what is brought in 
and conditioned by it. 

Schopenhauer's theory applies best to the feelings which are 
connected with the maintenance of the individual and of the race. 
It might seem as though the theory would apply best of all to the 
very earliest period of life ; at any rate an unprejudiced observer 
has come to the conclusion that pain is the prevailing feeling 
during the first six months of human life, and that during this 
period the feelings of pleasure in great measure arise through the 
removal of states of pain, not through the generation of positive 

Paris, 1880, p. 114). — The theory that all pleasure rests on the cessation of a need, was 
partially defended in ancient times by Epicurus, in later times by the Italian writers 
more especially (Cardanus, Verri), from whom Kant adopted it {Anthropol. § 57^, without 
however, drawing the consequences which Schopenhauer afterwards drew. 



286 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

states of pleasure.-^ But Schopenhauer, on the contrary, distinctly 
teaches that the feehng of the painfulness of existence is truly 
aroused only after consciousness is developed. If this were so, it 
should be expected that the earliest periods would be occupied by 
a feeling of pleasure, and not preponderatingly by one of pain. 

Schopenhauer absolutely disputes the psychological process by 
which the development of cognition also furthers feeling. He is, 
indeed so inconsistent as to admit ideal and disinterested feelings 
(delight in art and science, sympathy, especially compassion) ; but 
he cannot explain the difference between these and the feelings 
associated with purely physical impulses. In his opinion a man, 
in spite of all his thoughts and ideas, is just as brutish as an 
animal, has the same aspirations which the animal has ; only the 
latter attains its end far more easily and with less grief and pain.^ 
In this respect Schopenhauer takes his stand as a determined 
opponent of the evolution hypothesis, not wholly without justice as 
against the optimistic exaggerations of the mighty progress we 
have made. It cannot be denied that the brute instincts of 
self-preservation (Schiller's Hunger and Love) still in great measure 
govern life ; but this the evolution hypothesis may very well admit, 
without giving up its main doctrine. It is one question, whether 
an evolution actually takes place ; another, how much has been 
already accomplished. It is incredible that the evolution, admitted 
on all sides, of ideas and thoughts should have had no influence 
on feeling. It is at any rate a considerable advance that the 
said instincts are now required to justify their existence, because 
of their connection with more or less ideal and universal ends (of 
family, of State, etc.). 

To suppose that pleasure must always have pain as a back- 
ground would be to misunderstand the law of relativity. It is most 
impressive when it follows upon pain ; but it may also perfectly 
well have as background a weaker feeling of pleasure, and this is 
especially true wherever the instinct of self-preservation does not 
operate immediately. The struggle for a higher and nobler human 
existence aims consequently at suppressing the immediate instinct 

1 Preyer, Die Seele des Kindes pp. 91, 93. (Eng. Trans, i. pp. 141 — 143.) 

2 " Ultimately and in reality it is a question only of the same things that the 
animal desires, and with incomparably smaller expenditure of passion and distress." 
Parergaund Paralipojuena, Berlin, 1851, ii., p. 260. — "Animals have the same set of 
passions as man : joy, sorrow, fear, anger, love, hatred, longing, etc. ; the great difference 
between man and animals is due only to the degree of perfection of intellect." Ueber den 
Willen in der NaUir ("On the Will in Nature"), 2nd ed., p. 28.— This is further 
developed m Die Welt ah IVille tend Vorste lljmg- {'' Tho. World as Will and Idea"), 
vol. ii., ch. 10. 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 287 

of self-preservation, and at affording as wide an access as possible 
to those ends which are more than satisfaction of the bare desire 
of life. 

7. It is in itself a meaningless employment of terms to call a 
pleasure or pain negative. All feeling as such is a real, conse- 
quently a positive, state. Even '' illusory " or " chimerical " joy is 
real joy. The feeling that is mainly determined by contrast with 
another feeling is not on that account less real and positive. 
Hallucinations of pain are real substantial pains. The hypochon- 
driac feels real discomfort, and is not to be talked out of it. What 
is meant by such expressions as positive and negative, true and 
untrue, can in this connection be only the reality or unreality of 
the object of feeling. The feelings cannot be criticized except by 
criticizing their causes and their objects. 

Just as positive and negative feelings of pleasure have been 
talked of, so too it has been thought that there is a neutral 
point, denoting indifference, a point therefore at which neither 
pleasure nor pain is felt. It is a great question whether there 
really are such neutral states. A purely theoretical treatment 
might, indeed, lead to the view that, in the line which leads from 
the highest pleasure to the strongest pain, there must be a central 
point, equally far from both extremes. But this theoretical centre 
cannot be the expression of a real conscious state. For if we reach 
it from the side of pain, it will be felt as pleasure ; if from the side 
of pleasure, as pain — and until an accommodation has been effected, 
as both. This is a simple consequence of the law of relativity. 

Immediate experience is in this respect difficult to interpret, just 
because the law of relativity causes us to regard certain states as 
indifferent when we glance back at them in moments of strong 
excitement. Nevertheless, those psychologists appear to be right 
who maintain that keen and close observation will always reveal in 
the apparently neutral states fine oscillations of pleasure or pain. 
Even with the most abstract lines of thought there are associated 
weak moods of satisfaction or the reverse. Bain quotes wonder as 
an example of neutral states or stirrings of feeling (neutral excite- 
ments). As has been seen, this is a phenomenon bordering on both 
cognition and feeling, in which the two kinds of elements often seem 
in equilibrium. It is, however, on account of the stir and movement 
of mental powers, to be undoubtedly regarded as pleasure, like all 
other free and fresh activity. And if, on the other hand, wonder is 
presented as introducing fear, sorrow, scorn, or anger, it is a feeling 



288 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

of pain. Wonder need not belong to the powerful feelings, which 
leave the object in comparison with the emotion quite in the shade ; 
but it is not on that account neutral. 

It is perfectly easy to conceive an uninterrupted series of trans- 
itions from pleasure to pain, without a neutral point in the series 
being necessary. It is found by experiment that if, e.g. the hand is 
laid on a body the warmth of which gradually increases, at a certain 
point weak feelings of pain arise together with the pleasant sen- 
sation of warmth ; these former gradually increase and ultimately 
drown the pleasant feeling.^ 

The perpetual background of the life of feeling, the general 
vital feeling, has under normal conditions the character of pleasure, 
though we are not as a rule fully conscious of it, since, as already 
observed, we devote our health, liberty, and youthful strength to 
activities which excite stronger and more distinct feelings. It is 
only during times of convalescence, or when for any other reason 
the attention is especially directed to our state of health, that the 
feeling of pleasure connected with health comes properly into 
consciousness. 

There lies at the bottom of this notion of neutral states not only 
an overlooking of weaker degrees of pleasure and pain, but also 
a confusion of the state of mind in general with the effect of 
single ideas and experiences. Many impressions and ideas come 
and go, without exciting a noticeable feeling or obtaining distinct 
influence on the general state of feeling. But this general state 
itself is at each moment determined by the predominance either 
of the feeling of pleasure or of the feeling of pain. 

8. As instances of feelings, whose character is determined by the 
law of relativity, those of the sublime and the ridiculous shall now be 
more closely treated. The examination of these feelings may serve 
at once to show the way in which a feeling is developed into higher 
forms, through the conversion of pain into pleasure, of egoism into 
sympathy, and the importance for this feeling of the development 
of cognition. 

The feeli?tg of the sublime in its simplest forms is related partly 
to wonder, partly to fear. A thing is sublime, which affords 
such a wealth of impressions that the ordinary mean of intuition 
is far overpassed, without the object intuited ceasing to act upon 
us with gathered force. We attempt to compass it with our in- 
tuitive faculties, but cannot succeed or only with difficulty. Such 

1 Horwicz, PsychologisJtc Analyse7t, ii. 2, Magdeburg, 1878, p. 26. 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 289 

an effect is produced by high and precipitous mountains, by the 
desert, the expanse of ocean, the starry firmament. Even the idea 
of infinite time gives the impression of the sublime, as when it is 
said that every thousand years there comes a bird to whet his beak 
on a huge mountain, and when the mountain shall by this means 
be crumbled away, a second of eternity will have passed. Insuper- 
able force makes an impression earlier than immeasurable time 
and space. The feeling of the sublime is certainly first of all ex- 
perienced in consequence of the idea of extraordinary and superior 
human force. The savage has this feeling for a strong warrior, 
whose force and dexterity throw his own into the shade, just as we 
feel our existence a mere nothing in comparison with infinite space 
and infinite time. The sublimity of temporal and spatial extension 
(what Kant called mathematical sublimity) takes effect, indeed, not 
only by setting our intuitive faculties into more than usual activity, but 
also and principally by giving the impression of an immeasurable 
power, which operates in the huge masses of spatial and temporal 
particles. As observed in an earlier connection, interest for what is 
human manifests itself before the feeling for nature (C. 9). The 
sense of superior power, as feeling of the sublime, begins in the human 
world ^ and spreads from it over nature, the forces of nature being ap- 
prehended as more or less analogous to human force. In the raging of 
the wind and the sea, in the hurrying cloud and the great mountain 
piles, are manifested the spirits of the dead and the tribal gods. 

The feeling produced by superior power is not always dis- 
interested wonder or admiration. In the struggle of all with all, 
the strong warrior may turn his weapons against those of his own 
race as well as against the enemy. He defends, indeed, his 
countrymen, but requires in return their subjection. Of a similar 
kind is, at the lowest stage, the attitude to the gods. Since evil 
beings are prayed to and worshipped earlier than good, the feeling 
given to the divine must bear principally the stamp of fear. Only 
when the deity appears as essentially a protective and gracious 
power, does fear pass into reverence (see C. 8). Sublimity is found 
not only in the Jehovah of the Old Testament, who creates the world 
by His word and gives stern law to His people from the Mount amid 
thunder and lightning, but also in the teaching of Buddhism and of 
Christianity of the infinity of the divine pity and love, at the 
presence of which human sins and sorrows melt away as the mist 
before the sun. 

1 C/. Grant Allen, Th^ Origin of the Sublime {Mind, 1878). 



290 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

The pain which is associated with the feeling of the sublime in 
its primitive forms, disappears on higher development, partly 
because the intellectual elements of the feeling become richer and 
nobler, partly because the object of feeling is embraced with 
sympathy. As already exhibited, there is in reverence an element 
of sympathy which distinguishes it from fear. It is therefore 
scarcely true, as some psychologists hold, that an element of pain 
is necessarily involved in the feeling of the sublime, whether it is 
supposed, with Edmund Burke,^ that fear or terror always makes 
itself more or less distinctly felt in face of the sublime, or more 
idealistically, with Kant,^ that there is a " moment '^ of pain in the 
suppression of the lower, sensuous nature, that our supersensuous 
nature may attain to a clearer effect. The "moment^' of pain is 
lost, when the feeling of the sublime takes a purer and higher 
form. At the same time the egoistic " moment '' contained in fear 
also vanishes. 

The contrast, which is a presupposition of the feeling of the 
sublime, need, then, be of no painful character. We may even 
recognize our wretchedness with joy, if our soul is at the same 
time enlarged and satisfied by some great thing. We sacrifice 
life, in order to gain life. 

Here, as at so many other points of conscious life {cf. Y, A, ^ \ 
B, 8 d\ Cy-S ; — VI. ^. 2 e), the successive precedes the simultaneous. 
The feeling of our wretchedness and the feeling of the grandeur 
and loftiness of the object, may often for a long while rhythmically 
alternate, before they merge into the actual sense of the sublime. 
It is especiaMy at this rather restless stage in the development of 
feeling, that a " moment " of pain may make itself felt. The 
painful feeling of the insuperable is peculiar to this stage. 

9. While the feeling of the sublime involves a certain mental 
development, the feeling of the ridiculous is possible at the lower 
stages of consciousness, so soon as definite ideas can make them- 
selves felt. Indeed, even before this stage we find the physio- 
logical expression of the feeling ; laughter makes its appearance, 
even before anything ridiculous can be realized in consciousness. 

(a) Laughter may arise from purely physical causes, and so 
need not be an expression of emotion at all. Violent cold may 
excite not only shivering, but even laughter. The ancients mention 
a pathological laughter, caused by eating a herb grown in Sardinia 

1 Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of ojir Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 
part ii., sect. 1-2. 

2 Kritik der Urtheilskraft (" Critique of the Power of Judgment "), § 26. 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 291 

(hence "sardonic laughter"). Attacks of hysterical convulsions 
are often accompanied by laughter.^ Gladiators wounded in the 
diaphragm died laughing. Ludovicus Vives {De Anima. lib. iii.) 
relates of himself, that on first tasting food after a long fast, he 
could not refrain from laughter. Under this head belongs the 
laughter excited by tickling ; even a child of eight weeks laughs, 
when the soles of its feet are tickled. 

These phenomena must at once be set down as reflex movements. 
The only doubt that can be entertained is in respect of that last 
named, since, according to Preyer, the child laughs only when 
in a contented mood. Such mood is in itself enough to induce 
smiles and laughter. Even in the first few days there may be 
noticed in a contented and sleeping child a slight raising of the 
corner of the mouth (as contrasted with its depression, which ex- 
presses dissatisfaction and is often introductory to crying). Real 
smiling is not, however, noticeable till the fourth week, in conjunction 
with beaming eyes and a general indescribable air of satisfaction, 
together with certain bleating sounds, repeated by jerks, which 
also express obvious satisfaction. Laughter is merely the con- 
tinuation of smiling and of these sounds, and like these is originally 
only the expression of a satisfaction immediately based upon 
general feeling.^ 

Besides young children, also idiots, who, as Eschricht has said, 
are young children in the bodies of older children or of adults, 
express satisfaction by smiles and laughter. Many idiots display 
a perpetual smile and break frequently into shouts of laughter, 
especially when food is given them, when they are caressed or 
hear music. In the majority, this laughter cannot be caused by 
definite ideas.^ 

Ewald Hecker * has attempted to-give a physiological explanation 
of the laughter caused by tickling. Experiments seem to prove 
that tickling has as a consequence a reflex stimulation of the 
sympathetic nerves, which shows itself in a rhythmic contraction 

1 Laycock, " On the Reflex Functions of the V>rzxa'' {British and Foreign Medical 
Review^ 1845, vol. 19, p. 306), mentions a case of reflexive laughter consequent on an 
epilepsy, brought on by a swelling in the brain. A lady in a hypnotized condition broke 
into uncontrollable laughter, even during the singing of serious songs, when the bridge of 
her nose was gently pressed. On cessation of the pressure the laughter at once came 
to an end, and the countenance resumed its previous expressionless appearance. Preyer, 
Die Entdeckjing des Hypnotis77i ("The Discovery of Hypnotism"), p. 33. 

2 Darwin, Expression of Emotions^ p. 212, seq. Preyer, Die Seele des Kindes, pp. 14T, 
184-186 (Eng Trans, i. pp. 144, 206-208). 

3 Cf. Eschricht, Om Muligheden of at Helhrede Idioter ("On the Possibility of 
Restoring Idiots"), Copenhagen, 1854, p. 76. 

4 Die Physiologie und Psychologie des Lachensunddes Kotnischen (" The Physiology 
and Psychology of Laughter and of the Comic "), Berlin, 1873. 

U 2 



292 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

of the blood-vessels corresponding to the rhythmic intermittent 
contact. From this it follows that the rhythmic supply of blood 
to the brain is likewise rhythmically inhibited, and laughter then 
appears as a purposive reflex movement, the chest being com- 
pressed by the expiration, so that the flow of blood from the 
brain ceases. The movements of expiration are intermittent and 
rhythmic, like tickling touches. 

The explanation does not, however, embrace all phenomena of 
laughter, and especially not those in which laughter makes its 
appearance as an expression of immediate joy and immediate 
satisfaction. While the jerky breathing, in laughter caused by 
tickling, is nicely explained by Hecker^s theory, it is on the other 
hand not clear why an immediate feeling of satisfaction, which 
contains no contrast or rhythm, should be expressed in this con- 
vulsive way. — It is besides to be noted, that even in laughter caused 
by tickling, a central or psychical influence may make itself felt. 
We do not as a rule laugh if we are prepared for the tickling, and 
for this reason we are not able to tickle ourselves. Thus there 
must be something unexpected and sudden in the excitation, and 
after the first contact has taken place a vague expectation of its 
continuance (with the same strength) must be excited, an expecta- 
tion which will be disappointed, since the contact ceases in the next 
moment, to begin again immediately. It will be seen that in this 
there is an analogy between laughter as excited by tickling and 
laughter arising from the idea of something ridiculous. 

Laughter has often been regarded as peculiar to man, and so 
capable of serving as a means of definition of man (animal risibile). 
And if laughter needed the idea of something ridiculous, this would 
doubtless be correct. But even monkeys smile and laugh, not 
only when they are tickled or have something especially good to 
eat, but even on seeing some one they are fond of, or on making 
friends with their keeper.^ Moreover, it has been already observed 
by Ludovicus Vives ^De Anima^ lib. iii.), that that which man ex- 
presses by laughter may be expressed by animals in other ways 
{e.g. by wagging the tail). 

{b) The feeling of pleasure, which is the simplest mental cause 
of laughter, is from the nature of the case very often, and at a 
primitive stage almost exclusively, produced by impressions which 
satisfy the instinct of self-preservation and appeal to the love of 
self. Life is above all things a struggle for existence. 

1 Darwin, Expression of Einotions^ pp. 132-135. 



vi] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 293 

Strong and suddenly excited self-esteem easily breaks out in 
laughter. With idiots of a somewhat higher class than those just 
mentioned, personal vanity is the most frequent cause of laughter. 
Here two conditions unite ; the sudden, unexpected, and the strong 
self-esteem. This species of laughter is met with in characteristic 
forms, principally where a hard and doubtful struggle has been 
carried on and is suddenly crowned with victory, and that which 
threatened life is now laid powerless and harmless. Hence the 
exultant shouts to which the Homeric heroes gave voice over the 
conquered foe. What here finds a vent is not merely a feeling of 
salvation and deliverance. The image of the opponent in his full 
strength and formidableness is suddenly succeeded by the image of 
the same opponent as crushed and checked in his great designs. 
The impulse to dwell on the nothingness and powerlessness of the 
vanquished foe as compared with his previous aspect, often takes 
the form of barbarous insults to the prisoner or the corpse. In 
more or less brutal forms this species of the feeling of the ridiculous 
always finds an occasion, so long as even in the human world 
life is a struggle for existence. Thomas Hobbes therefore grasped 
an essential aspect, when he explained laughter as a sudden 
sense of superiority (sudden glory. Human Nature, ix. 13). Hobbes, 
with his doctrine of the state of nature as the struggle of all with 
all, was naturally led to lay the stress on the feeling of self-esteem 
or Qi power. The one-sidedness of his view lay in his not inquiring 
whether the sense of power which breaks out in laughter does not 
sustain essential changes and acquire a different character, accord- 
ing to the nature of that which occasions it. Everywhere, however, 
where there is conflict in the service of anything cared for, an 
element of contempt will be found, in the way in which those 
contending regard the plans and exertions of their opponents. Even 
in religious poetry and religious polemic we meet with this 
form of the feeling of the ridiculous. Thus, the second psalm 
says, " The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel 
together, against the Lord and against his anointed." " Let us 
break their bonds asunder ; and cast away their cords from us." 
"He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn ; the Lord 
shall have them in derision." And Pascal, in defending himself 
against the complaints of the Jesuits that in his Provincial Letters 
he had employed ridicule as a weapon, observes that as there are 
two things to be found in religious truth— a divine beauty and a 
divine majesty, so there are two things contained in religious error : 



294 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

ungodliness which makes it terrible, and insolence which makes it 
ridiculous ; and for this reason the saints entertained both hatred 
and contempt of error, and showed their zeal, not only by forcibly 
repelling the wickedness of the ungodly, but also by exposing their 
error to ridicule, following in this the example of God himself 
{Lettres ecrttes d un Provincial^ xi.). 

The mere possibility of employing laughter as a weapon, shows 
that it presupposes power. One man can laugh at another only 
when the latter is the weaker. Of course it is not always real 
superiority that finds a vent in this way. Actual distress and 
perplexity may manifest themselves in smiles and constrained 
laughter. Indeed, even the consciousness of complete powerless- 
ness, when associated with the resolve not to yield, may find 
expression in the same way. In Paludan-Miiller's ^ Fall of Lucifer^ 
Lucifer laughs for the first time, as " with trembling unparalleled, 
but with unbending defiance " he takes possession of his kingdom. 

The fact that nobody likes to be made the object of ridicule, 
is naturally explained by Hobbes's theory. Few take it as humor- 
ously as Socrates, who got up during the representation of the 
Clouds^ that the caricature might be compared with the original. 
The mere fact of anything having a ridiculous side to it, shows that 
it does not represent absolute power. Precisely for this reason 
is it on the other hand so tempting, wherever claim is made to 
authority and absolute recognition, to discover something ridiculous. 
Everything sublime, all reputation and all dignity have a dangerous 
foe in ridicule. Laughter is here not so much an expression of 
superior power, as an expression of deliverance. Even things 
which would not seem ridiculous under ordinary circumstances, 
become so in a situation of enforced seriousness. Boys can find 
amusement in the smallest things during school hours. The bare 
fact of anything occurring without the consent of the controlling 
authority suffices to arouse the consciousness of freedom. Authori- 
ties that have almost lost their power become the natural objects 
of the feeling of the ridiculous. The appearance of comic poetry 
(Aristophanes, Moliere, Holberg) always therefore denotes a crisis, 
at which the consciousness of freedom breaks out. 

{c) Scorn is not, however, a necessary element of the feeling of 
the ridiculous. This feeling undergoes an essential change if it 
has sympathy as its basis. When a close link unites the person 
who laughs with the object of his laughter, there arises a new and 

1 A Danish poet. 



Vi] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 295 

special feeling. This is even the case when we laugh at something 
which we have ourselves said or done at some earlier time ; we 
expose ourselves to ridicule, although we of course take a different 
view of our absurd behaviour from that of persons who see it only as 
outsiders or as antagonists. To laugh at some one with whom we 
are in sympathy is the same thing as laughing at ourselves. Here 
there is a duality of feeling ; the worth of the object is recognized 
beneath its littleness. In one and the same instant a double 
standard is applied. So with laughter at the helplessness and 
groundless fear of a child or at its naivete. Here there is a 
hidden bond of union between the person laughing and the object 
of his laughter. The feeling is deprived of its sting. The feeling 
of the ridiculous with a substratum of sympathy is what is called 
humour. This may be more than a passing mood. It may be so 
developed as to become the basis of a view of life which is, indeed, 
keenly aware of the finiteness, pain, folly and discord of the world, 
and sharply contrasts this with what is great and important, but 
which has at the same time in its close fellow-feeling for all living 
beings and in its firm faith in the forces ruling in nature and 
in history, overcome all bitterness. The humorous view of life 
is reconciled to the experience that even what is great and exalted 
has its limitations, its finite side, and in its ridicule of the small 
and finite does not forget that this may be the form of a valuable 
content. 

Comic poetry depends not only on the consciousness of freedom, 
but also on a more or less prominent humorous view of life. Only in 
this is it different from the squib or satire, in which the egoistic or 
at any rate the antipathetic " moment ^^ is dominant, a single 
definite person or thing being dealt with. Only with humour as a 
basis does art become really free. The power to which the 
humourist and the comic poet make appeal, is no longer their own 
self as opposed to another self ; rather, by exposing meanness and 
folly, they defend truth and reason. Here, then, the feeling of power 
is not egoistic ; what is seen in its insignificance is only that which 
in the object of ridicule contradicts the true and right. This is 
why, after laughing at a person, we often feel the impulse to declare 
that he is a good fellow after all.-^ 

Rousseau (111 the Lettre ct d'Alemberi) reproaches Mollere with having in the 
Misanthroi)e described a worthy person as ridiculous. Lessing with this in view drew 
attention to the difference between laughing at and ridiculing. {Hajnburgische Drama- 
turgies No. 28-29). Aristotle had already distinguished between satire and comedy. 
{^Poet. c. 4). 



296 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

{d) But whether the substratum is sympathetic or antipathetic, 
everything ridiculous has this in common, that something weak 
suddenly appears in all its insignificance through the contrast to 
a superior power. The ridiculous presupposes that for a moment 
we have let ourselves be duped, puzzled, deceived by an illusion or 
excited by an expectation, and that the whole affair is all at once 
changed into a mere nothing.^ The psychical element in tickling 
is, as already observed, the expectation, excited but immediately 
disappointed. A child laughs at every sudden movement, especially 
if repeated in jerks, as when some one crouches in front of him and 
then rises up, and repeats this bending and rising. Sudden 
deliverance from painful and dangerous situations has the same 
effect. All wit depends on exciting expectation, by propound- 
ing a puzzle or asking the solution of a riddle — a puzzle or a 
solution, the utter absurdity of which will presently be shown. All 
comic effect is a species of effect of contrast. — In a farce performed 
some years ago in the Bouffes Parisiens there was a character 
who sat in a corner of the foreground perfectly still, quite unaffected 
by the action of the piece. From time to time it was asked why 
he sat there. At last some one proposed to address him, but was 
prevented by another who said, " Don't speak to him ; he is deaf ! " 
This gave an explanation of his passive attitude. But at the same 
moment the character added with a melancholy countenance, 
" and dumb." This excited roars of laughter.^ To the Emperor 
Charles V. is ascribed the utterance as to his relation to Francis I. 
of France (with whom he carried on constant wars, especially 
about the possession of Milan) : *' My brother Francis and I are 
quite agreed ; we both wish to have Milan." The point of agree- 
ment was just the cause of strife ; but there is roused an expectation 
to see the relation between the two Sovereigns in another light ; 
and this expectation is in the next instant disappointed. 

The effect of contrast, on which the ridiculous depends, results 
from the sudden conjunction of two thoughts or two impressions, 
each of which excites a feeling, and the second of which razes 
what the first erects. No closer logical basis can be given of the 
effect thus produced any more than it can be logically explained 
why two complementary colours call up one another. The ex- 

1 Especial emphasis is laid on this by Kant, Kritik der Urtheilskf-afi, § 53 5 by 
Zeising, ^sthetische Forschungen (" -(Esthetic Inquiries"), (Frankfort, 1855, pp. 282- 
290), and by Spencer {^Physiology of Laughter^ Essays, vol. i.). 

^ If I remember rightly, the piece was a parody of a diplomatic congress to settle the 
affairs of the Greeks, and Greece was admitted to the congress without being allowed to 
take a part in the discussion. 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 297 

planation of the ridiculous frequently given [among Danish 
writers, especially by S. Kierkegaard in Uvidenskabelig Efterskrift 
(*' Unscientific Postscript ^^) p. 394, seq?\ as depending upon a 
contradiction, is at once too abstract and too narrow. Even 
though the conjunction which gives rise to the feeling of the 
ridiculous may frequently be formulated as a logical contradiction 
(as in the notion of a man being deaf and dumb and himself 
announcing that fact), this does not give the real process, which 
must consist essentially in a contrast of feeling. A certain intellec- 
tual development is of course necessary to the apprehension of the 
ridiculous, just as the power of the eye to apprehend each several 
colour independently is a presupposition of the effect of contrast in 
colours. The feeling of the ridiculous is in this respect related to 
surprise and wonder, which also depend on opposition and contrast 
{cf, 3). That the element of feeling is the essential thing in these 
phenomena is evident from the fact that they scarcely stand re- 
petition and custom. While cognition {e.g. insight into logical 
contradictions) is practised and strengthened by repetition, feeling 
becomes deadened {cf. 4). The ridiculous does not bear too frequent 
repetition. 

Even when we laugh at a logical contradiction, the (antipathetic 
or sympathetic) feeling of power plays a part. We have, namely, 
our own reason as the solid ground from which to pronounce judg- 
ment, and we are more or less clearly conscious of it, when we 
laugh at something absurd. Even if it is not our own victory that 
we celebrate with laughter, it is at any rate the victory of reason. 

ie) The feeling of the ridiculous, then, depends, like the feeling of 
the sublime, on a contrast. But the two feelings stand, besides, in 
a relation of contrast to one another. They both rest on one and 
the same fundamental relation, on the relation between greatness 
and insignificance, looked at from opposite sides. Probably this 
was what Socrates had in mind, when (towards the end of the feast 
described by Plato in the Symposiwn) he insisted that it is the 
business of one and the same person to write tragedy and comedy. 
This proposition is borne out even by the ancient Greek tragic 
poets, who wrote satyr plays as well as tragedies ; but not till 
Shakespeare's great example does its full truth appear. It has 
been strikingly observed that Shakespeare's humour is a part of his 
faith in the world. For man's real position is this, that he must 
bring his force to bear on his surroundings, must overcome and 
crush resistance, while at the same time he must feel his insig- 



298 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vl 

nificance in face of the great powers of nature and of history. Only 
he who neither exults nor fears has won complete victory over 
himself and over the world. To laugh much, as Hobbes has said, 
is the mark of a small mind which feels his power only in compari- 
son with what is beneath him, while it is the mark of a great mind 
to help others and to compare himself with the greatest {Leviathan^ 
chap. 6). In humour we feel great and small at the same time, 
and sympathy makes laughter humorous, just as it changes fear 
into reverence. 



F. — The Influence of Feeling on Cognition. 

It has been shown in previous sections {B. and C.) how the con- 
nection of ideas is of use to the feelings, and facilitates their 
development. But deeper than the influence of ideation upon 
feeling is the influence of feeling upon ideation. The funda- 
mental union of the feeling element with the cognitive element 
forms always the beginning of the general higher psychological 
development ; but while it is being effected — consequently during 
the psychological process described in sections B. and C — the 
feeling element is by no means absolutely passive. 

I. In treating of the development of feeling by means of 
cognition, we assumed that nothing enters to hinder the combina- 
tion of ideas. But the feeling itself may have a hindering effect. 
If the feeling a is very closely intergrown with the idea a^ it will 
hinder the natural union between a and <^2? <^3 • • • and still more 
that between a and ^, — that is to say, the line of thought is not 
brought to its full conclusion, because the feeling will not expand 
beyond its original object. Here operates the inertia of feelings, 
which in this way becomes a source of many inconsistencies in 
history and in daily life. The fact that the Greeks could not ex- 
tend their love of humanity to the barbarians, did not spring from 
any purely intellectual narrowness (although their limited historical 
experience had something to do with it), but full ethical consistency 
was hindered by their patriotism. Christianity threw down these 
barriers, not by intellectual superiority, but by the deep emotion 
which it aroused. Within Christendom intolerance has erected 
new barriers, and hindered the consistent development of the 
religion of love. The result to which logical thought seems able 
to lead instantaneously, demands therefore in history a long period ; 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 299 

a revolution in the life of feeling is the product of the experiences 
of long intervals of time. Consequently, historical criticism can 
only with caution employ logical contradiction as a criterion ; 
historical development would be impossible if no inconsistencies 
were possible. Historical inquiry has to try and find the actual 
feelings which in special cases have helped to retard and hinder. 
The measure of the intrepidity and energy of the thought may be 
deduced from these barriers of feeling, in defiance of which the new 
feelings have made their way. 

But the step once taken, feeling is the faithful guardian of what 
has been acquired. Then its inertia is of use to knowledge. By the 
fusing of b with a through a, b takes deep root in the mind. 
Knowledge gains in certainty and security, and becomes properly 
a personal possession only when rooted in this way in feeling, in 
the immediate state of the individual. 

The fact that a certain idea, or set of ideas, has as a basis strong 
interest or violent emotion, alters its relation to other ideas. It 
becomes a stronger centre of association than it would otherwise 
be. In all experiences regard is paid only to that which in some 
way or other affects the idea supported and strengthened by the 
interest. All the other elements in the world do not exist for con- 
sciousness. Feeling effects here a quahtative choice. All ideas 
which do not harmonize with the ruling feeling are suppressed, just 
as forms of life disappear which are unable to adapt themselves to 
their circumstances. Lotze has especially emphasized the fusing 
of ideas with the given vital feeling. If the vital feeling is changed, 
the road to the ideas connected with it is blocked ; even if new 
experiences recall certain of these, the common bond of union still 
fails. " It is in this way," says Lotze, " that I should attempt 
to interpret the facts that, when we have recovered from severe 
illness, we do not remember what we experienced while it lasted, or 
while, before its outbreak, our general feeling was already changed ; 
that when we are free from the paroxysm of fever, we do not re- 
member sets of ideas which accompany it, and that in particular 
cases the sets of ideas are carried on when the next paroxysm 
occurs, owing to the return of the morbid general feeling." ^ 

2. Some psychologists have attributed to the several ideas an 
impulse of self-preservation, through which they endeavour to 
make themselves felt with a certain strength in consciousness, 

1 Drei Biicher der Metaphysik^ p. 600 (Eng. trans, by Mr. Bosanquet ; vol. ii. p. 315). 
Cf, V. B.TC. 



300 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

and to suppress one another. The psychology of cognition has 
proved the unsoundness of this view (V. B. 6). The strength of 
each individual idea depends, in the first place, upon its relation to 
the rest of the ideas in consciousness. The idea which can find 
support in the greatest number of experiences and memories, will 
have the greatest chance of becoming the dominant idea. In the 
second place, the strength of the idea depends on its relation to 
feeling. When there is strong tension or deep and enduring 
interest, even ideas which stand in connection with very wide and 
oft repeated experiences, may be wholly thrust aside. The fetish- 
worshipper lays more stress on the few cases in which he can 
believe that he received help from his sacred stone, than on the 
many in which such a belief is quite impossible. When we love 
some one dearly, we do not see the unlovable traits. Such a case 
is very charmingly and touchingly described by Prevost in his 
Manon Lescaut, Love is blind — but only because it is wonderfully 
keen-sighted in a single respect. 

In biographies of criminals are found numberless examples of 
the dazzling power of feeling and of passion. The strong desire 
for an object — whether a kingly crown or a silver watch — over- 
powers thought, or rather concentrates all thought upon the object 
and upon the means for obtaining it. Shakespeare has described 
with masterly hand, in Macbeth, how the idea of the criminal 
action may so dominate the mind, as to appear the only reality : 

" My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, 
Shakes so my shigle state of man, that function 
Is smother'd in surmise ; and nothing is 
But what is not." (Act i.. Scene 3,) 

To this circumstance is to be attributed the often incredibly foolish 
way in which crimes are committed. " In the greater number 
of crimes," says the celebrated jurist, Anselm von Feuerbach/ 
" it may be quite distinctly shown how the understanding of the 
criminal is dazzled, clouded, taken prisoner by desire, limited 
in the free use of its activity by the witchcraft of the impulses 
which have become uncontrollable in him, and how this very 
limitation has been a chief auxiliary in the execution of the act.'^ 
Such crimes come about by the claims, not only of conscience^ 
but also of prudence being deadened. 

1 Akten}}iiissige Darstellung Merkwurdiger Vcr/>rec/2en{^^ Official Account of Remark- 
able Crimes"), ii., p, 342, — On the psychological problem contained in this is grounded 
Dostojewski's novel, Raskolnikoiv. 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 301 

It is impossible to know beforehand whether, in any individual 
case, the incentive of feeling or the connection of the ideas will 
be the stronger. It is a question of a trial of strength. — Other 
circumstances may make the matter yet more complicated. The 
strongly tempting incentive of feeling may itself, through effect of 
contrast, produce a vivid idea of the moral law and of the interest 
we were about to violate ; on such effect of contrast rest some 
of the most impressive manifestations of conscience. In other 
cases the customary association of ideas may still call out images, 
which are capable of checking the current of the dominant feeling. 
When Lady Macbeth is about to lay hands on the old king, she 
is held back by his likeness to her father : — ■ 

'' Had he not resembled 
My father as he slept, I had done't." (x'^ct ii., Sc. 2.) 

A shade more passion™ and the law of similarity could not have 
taken effect. 

We are here on the bounds between feeling and will. For the 
blindness and absolute dominance of passionate feeling seldom 
arise through the purely involuntary play of feelings and ideas ; 
strange as it sounds, a man can will to delude himself, can for the 
sake of his passion repress sober reflection. If the indulgence of 
the passion meets with resistance in the mind, he can set under- 
standing and imagination to work to find grounds for deadening 
the inner voice. The inner contradiction is unendurable, and must 
be somehow set aside. The individual is then a sophist to himself. 
In all passion some such sophistry may be shown. It is the same 
thing in a milder form, when we hold fast to favourite opinions, 
give them colour, and act upon them, very often for wholly in- 
adequate reasons. 

3. Originally a practical interest sets ideas in motion. The 
problem for primitive cognition is to discover the means of satis- 
fying the instinct. Only gradually is there evolved the impulse to 
cognition for the sake of the thing cognized (see V. i>. 4 ; VI. C 9). 
And even the efforts of thought called out by contemplative 
enthusiasm only emancipate themselves slowly and imperfectly 
from the control of practical feeling, and hence bear as a rule the 
impress of teleology. The resignation, with which feeling restrains 
itself, in order to let the thoughts go their own way and follow their 
own laws, is the outcome of severe struggles in the history both of 
the individual and of the whole human race. Man desires to 



302 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

know nature as it is ; but he also desires that his own ends may- 
be ends of nature. All causal laws are to him in the last resort 
means to the realization of the highest good. The tendency makes 
its appearance both at the rudest stage of fetishism, and in the highly- 
developed thought of the idealistic philosophy. Content and value 
of the feelings and ideas are most different at the different stages ; 
the psychological relation between feeling and cognition remains, 
however, the same from the lowest up to the highest stage. 

The concept of necessity is originally practical : thought seeks 
only the conditions without which the aims of man cannot be 
realized. Hence thought acquires from the first a negative 
character in contrast to feeling ; feeling is sanguine and impatient, 
and would prefer to go straight to its aim ; only unwillingly does 
it make way for a consideration as to the means, without which 
the aim cannot be attained. 

The definite, inevitable connection between means and end, 
bidding defiance to the strongest emotion ; the fact that if a is 
desired, b must be had also — first brings man into collision with 
necessity. After the repetition of such experiences, thought at 
length draws the conclusion that such necessary connection is an 
essential part of all given reality. It may then become an in- 
dependent problem, the object of immediate interest, to explain 
these necessary laws, and, forgetting self, to be absorbed in the 
great system of phenomena. Then the relation between cause and 
effect takes the place of the relation between means and end. The 
history of the sciences shows a progressive passage from teleology 
to mechanism — under the constant protest and opposition of feeling. 
Even if science explained the whole universe according to its 
laws, it would not be able to prevent feeling from postulating, as 
a basis for this whole system of causes and effects, a highest 
teleology, beyond our powers of conception. The final questions 
with which views of life are concerned, the questions of the value 
and significance of reality and of life, are decided in the last resort 
according to the dictates of feeling. This is clearly shown in the 
present day by the great importance obtained by the opposition 
between the optimistic and pessimistic views of life. In the last 
resort, our own innermost nature and personal experience of life 
decide the issue. 

4. Just as a landscape looks different according to the light 
falling on it, so the same things and events seem to us quite 
different in our different moods. Here principally the vital feeling 



VI] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 303 

with its oscillations plays an important part. Lichtenberg says : 
^ I have distinctly observed that I have often when lying down a 
different opinion from what I have when standing ; especially if I 
have eaten little and am tired." The feeling does not at once change 
with the ideas, but extends to the new ideas, even when these are 
in no way connected with that which produced the feeling. Hence 
a feeling is often strange and incomprehensible to ourselves, 
especially when it owes its origin to internal organic states ; but in 
most cases it exerts its influence upon the new ideational content 
without our noticing it. If, after the idea a, associated with a 
strong feeling a, we have from any cause (not merely from 
association with a) the idea x, then a may also extend to x. 
We owe much to this influence ; for by its means an augmentation 
of mental life at one point may promote many mental activities. 
Thus, e.g, music, wine, and quick bodily movement, may set in 
movement the activity of thought. Under this head must also be 
ranged many of the examples in Feilberg^s work, Oj7z Storst 
Udbytte af Sjdhevner (" On the Greatest Utilization of the Mental 
Faculties "). He emphasizes with justice the way in which new 
impressions and situations may excite a movement of the whole 
consciousness, quite apart from their content. " New situations 
bring the mind into the state called by chemists the status nascendi, 
which substances have at the moment of generation. As chemistry 
teaches of substances, that in this state they have a special ten- 
dency to enter into new combinations, so is it with the mind. 
The state which is, as it were, wavering, is just set free from some 
former thing, contains increased chances for the birth of new states 
(has more possibilities)." — p. 30. 

This phenomenon might be called the expansion of feeling. All 
strong feeling struggles for the sole control in the mind, and gives 
a colour to all mental activities.-^ This expansion is different from 
the widening of feeling through association of ideas, previously 
described (VI. B. 3). Through expansion, the feeling spreads over 
all ideas and sensations, even when they stand in no connection 
whatever with those which were at first associated with the feeling. 

1 This law had already been pointed out by Unme {Treatise i, 3, 8), and plays an import- 
ant part in his theory of knowledge. More recently Beneke has developed the same law in 
an interesting way {Psychologische Skizzen ("Psychological Sketches"), i., p. 362, seq.). 
— Cf. also Spencer, Princ. of Psych. ^ §§ 260-261. A good example may be found in 
Goethe's Erster Ej>istel, (" The question seems to me serious and important ; but it finds 
me at present in a cheerful mood. . . And to the happy the world seems happy also,") — ■ 
Cf. also Mdme. de Stael's observation {Corinne, i-j i) • " Quand on souffre, on se persuade 
aisempnt que Ton est coupable, et les violents chagrins portent le trouble jusque dans la 
conscience." 



304 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vi 

In the one the effect proceeds from the idea, in the other from 
the feehng itself. The same law, by virtue of which feeling ob- 
tains external expression, operates here. There is, so to speak, a 
mental as well as a bodily mimicry ; the one is the influence of 
feeling upon ideas, the other its effect upon muscular movements. 
--What follows is a description of certain cases, in which the 
expansion of feeling operates in conjunction with the inhibitive and 
selective influence of feeling. 

{a) The anticipating and actualizing effect of feeling. During 
strong mental tension there is a disposition to take expected 
impressions as given before they really occur. If, eg.^ we im- 
patiently expect a carriage, we think every instant that we hear 
a rumbling. — Experiments made in respect of physiological time, 
afford good instances of this. If, eg.^ a certain excitation is to be 
responded to, the attention may be so on the stretch that response 
is made to a different excitation instead of to the one expected, 
not by mistake, but because in a state of strong tension any 
excitation whatsoever leads to the action which is on the point 
of being made. Or the signal is thought to be heard before it 
is really given. — A great number of the so-called mesmeric or 
spiritualistic phenomena may be explained through the strained 
expectation which the experimenter excites in the persons on 
whom he operates.^ — Because the difference between memory 
images or imaginations and real percepts is one of degree only 
(V. B. y a\ D. 1-2), it is easily obliterated when feeling is strongly 
excited. Feeling thus actualizes the ideas, i.e. gives them a mark 
of reality that does not ^properly belong to them. — Even in the 
sphere of thought, feeling may have an anticipating effect, de- 
ciding the question from its postulates, instead of going through 
the tedious and reasoned line of argument. Contemplative zeal 
sets forth the wished-for unity and harmony in a system of philo- 
sophy, and often thinks a result has been thus attained. 

{b) The idealizing effect of feeling. It lies in the nature of 
feeling not to inquire after distinctions, conditions, and limitations. 
It is absolute in character and finds vent in superlatives (always, 
never, only, etc.). Closer determination, the recognition of con- 
ditions and limitations, is the business of cognition. When, 
however, feeling incessantly permeates the thoughts, and is never 
quite satisfied with their content, it impels them ever farther, 

1 A full inquiry into the influence of " expectant attention" in phenomena of this kind 
is given in Carpenter's Mental Physiology y p. 279, seq.^ 618, seq. 



vi] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 305 

even at length beyond the limits of cognition. This pressure 
feeling exerts through the concentration already mentioned upon 
one single thought, which is thus set free from its connection 
with other thoughts and from its limitation by them. Practical and 
ethical interests especially act in this way. Feeling leads in 
consequence to the formation of an ideal world, from which the 
imperfections and sufferings of the actual world are far removed. 
The idealizing speculation which springs from this source, has its 
own importance. 

{c) The inciting and animating influence of feeling. Through 
its very obscurity and inexplicability, feeling exercises great in- 
fluence upon cognition. The various stones in the structure of 
cognition may as a rule be easily pointed out. But feeling has 
its source in the natural instincts, and we know only a small part 
of its course. The quiet power of the conditions of life, the effect 
of which appears only after a long time, is of more significance 
than the individual experiences, clearly apparent and established. 
But whatever the way in which feeling has arisen, it desires not 
only to expand and to dominate everything, but also to be itself 
explaiiied and justified. This need of an explanation stands in 
connection with man^s instinct of self-preservation. In pleasure 
and pain he experiences the action of the world on his vital 
process ; these are signs which he must interpret, and of which 
he must trace the causes, if his life is to be preserved and 
advanced. Also at higher stages of development the individual 
finds his innermost nature expressed by feelings, and seeks in con- 
sequence to find their justification. Feeling cannot, however, justify 
itself; it is not in itself any source of knowledge. So soon as 
appeal is made to feeling, discussion is at an end. The conflict 
between views of life must be carried on with clear thoughts. 
Feeling plays an important part as an agent in starting and helping 
forward ; it inquires and induces inquiry, but does not itself afford 
any answer. — While, as purely individual and incommunicable, 
feeling isolates individuals, it also from its need of explanation 
and justification brings them together. Only in union can they find 
full explanation. Thus feeling acts as a founder of societies, calls 
into being communities, factions, schools, and scientific associations. 

Examples illustrating the need of feeling for explanation and 
justification may be taken from the effect of music and from the 
usual course of mental diseases. 

Feeling exercises an attractive power, not only over ideas of the 

X 



3o6 OUTLINES OF I'SYCHOLOGV [vl 

same kind as that which originally caused it, but also over other 
ideas which excite similar feelings. By this means the feeling may 
become a connecting link between ideas of different kinds. When 
the man born blind, to whom was attempted an explanation of the 
colour scarlet, exclaimed, " It must be something like the blast of 
a trumpet,'' there arose through the description of the sensation of 
a dazzling and strong colour the related idea of an aggressive 
sound {cf. VI. A. 3 e). Wundt^ has called this phenomenon the 
analogy of sensations. By virtue of it music calls up images and 
ideas from other departments of sense. An analogy of sensations is 
formed, e.g.^ through the common element in feelings accompanying 
free and easy respiration, the breaking forth of light after darkness, 
and the sound of pure and clear tones after discord and confused 
noise. The feeling excited by music finds involuntarily— though 
perhaps chiefly in those who are not specially and technically 
trained— a more or less clear symbolical expression by means of 
analogous sensations. Events and experiences of our inner or of 
external nature serve for the concrete depicting of the general mood.'-^ 
Musicians warn against yielding to such a state of dreaming, lest 
the specific effect of the music be lost ; but it is impossible to avoid 
it entirely. Music owes its great power over men precisely to the 
circumstance that the memories it excites are attached by in- 
numerable threads to all the experiences of life, and may branch 
out on all sides of our being. 

According to a view chiefly developed by Guislain, all mental 
disease consists in the first instance in a pathological disturbance 
of feeling. Intellectual disturbances, together with the abnormal 
expressions of the will, now violent, now whimsical, now con- 
vulsive, would then be only the consequences of a primary 
disturbance of the sensibility. " Mental disturbance,'' says Guislain, 
"appears to me in most cases an oppression of the sensitive 
faculties (une douleur du sens affectif)." ^ A stadium melancho- 
licum is in most cases the first chapter in the history of in- 
sanity. The intelligence is at first unimpaired.* But the patient 

1 Physiol. Psychologies I., p. 486 (3rd ed. i. p. 530). Cf. Nahlowsky, DasGefiihlslehen 

(" The Life of Feeling"), p. 142, ^^:7- ^,. ,^,,. ^. r- r. 7,^4.^\ 

2 Cf. what M. Goldschmidt relates of himself {Livs ErvLdringer og Kesultater) 
(" Memories and Results of Life "), i., p. 46. " As far back as I can remember, singmg 
did not affect me with a desire to join in, but was transformed mto pictures. 

3 Cf. Griesinger, Die Pathologie unci Therapie der Psychischen Krankhetten ( 1 he 
Pathology and Therapeutics of Psychical Diseases"), ^ (2nd edition, pp. 65, 214). 
Prichard, Uber Geisteskrankheiten ("On Mental Diseases ).~See a so above, V.^^. 5. 

4 Thus a patient said of his condition before the actual outbreak of the malady : 1 was 
then most heavy at heart, but clear in the head." (Krafft-Ebing, Dze Melanchohe. 
Einc Klinische Studie, Erlangen, 1874, p. 57-) 



Vi] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 307 

involuntarily searches for the cause of his painful feeling. Only 
with great self-control can he keep hold of the conviction that the 
cause lies simply and solely in his own pathological state. He 
soon frames an explanation for himself. He lays the blame on his 
surroundings or on other innocent persons (especially such as have 
something mysterious about them, as the secret police, the free- 
masons, the Jesuits ^). He believes himself persecuted, misjudged, 
molested. Especially when these ideas are favoured by illusions 
and hallucinations do they establish themselves firmly in the 
consciousness of the patient. 

These false ideas are an attempt to explain the new, changed, 
and abnormal feelings. The individual is driven by his patho- 
logical frame of mind out of the normal harmony with his 
surroundings ; feeling is now determined purely from within, 
and is no longer the subjective indicator of the position the man 
holds in the universe. Even in a healthy state, feelings without an 
objective motive may arise, but they then find an easy corrective ; 
the disease consists precisely in the inability to correct and control 
them. The altered feeling becomes now the basis of a new con- 
ception of the universe, to which the patient yields himself more 
and more, and in this way feeds his despondency. 

Often in the midst of the greatest despondency there may be a 
sudden change of gloom to light (see E. 2). Through a certain 
instinct of self-preservation the mind finds compensation for what 
it has lost, in an imaginary world. " Such a frame of mind,^' says 
Ideler,^ of a patient whose madness was caused by an unhappy 
attachment, " can, when some collectiveness is again possible, 
take only one of two courses : either the mind will sink into the 
deepest melancholy, if the certainty of its loss overwhelms it ; or if 
it does not lack the power of resistance, it will constrain itself to a 
delusion which promises the fulfilment of its most ardent wishes. 
.... Thenceforward the whole endeavour of the patient will be 
to mould this phantasy ever more in accordance with the heart's 
desire and with sophistical reasoning to set aside all con- 
tradictions which it meets with in the real world." 



1 Lichtenberg describes his state of hypochondria as follows : "I regard the whole 
world as a machine, which exists in order to make me feel my suffering and my illness in 
every possible way." Vermisckte Schriften (" Miscellaneous Writings"), i., p, i6. 

2 Biographieen Geistesk^'anker^ p. i8. 



VII 

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 

A, — The Originality of the Will 

1. As in Greek mythology Eros was made one of the oldest and 
at the same time one of the youngest of the gods, so in psychology 
the will may, according to the point of view, be represented as the 
most primitive or as the most complex and derivative of mental 
products. If a will is acknowledged only where there is conscious 
choice between alternatives, then it presupposes a certain develop- 
ment of cognition and feeling, and consequently cannot exist at 
the lowest stage of consciousness. A choice implies a given 
content that may be chosen ; and this content must grow up and 
acquire a value in consciousness. This is true, too, of movements, 
which are a condition of all externally directed action, on which 
account a germ of will has been with justice attributed even to 
those movements that take place before consciousness is roused. 
To understand the nature of the will, it is necessary first to go back 
to this primitive germ, and to trace the course of its development 
from unconscious into conscious, though involuntary movement, 
and from this again into movement consciously selected. 

2. The simplest organisms possess the power of setting up 
movements independently of external stimulus ; the . source of 
movement lies within the individual organism. Such an ^'•automatic'' 
Qx'' spontaneous'' movement is of course not causeless. It is in 
fact brought about by internal changes, setting free accumulated 
energy. Of this description are the movements the amoeba makes 
incessantly, which seem indeed to be a property of all organic cells, 
even of those that are elements of higher organisms (as, for 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 309 

example, the white blood-corpuscles). The amoeba derives its 
name {d}jL(n(3rj) from its perpetual and internally excited changes of 
movement, while a constant change of form of this description 
is thence in its turn called amcebasan movement.^ The internal 
changes, which set free potential energy, must in their turn depend 
on the function of nourishment, which is the fundamental organic 
process. The spontaneous movement of living creatures is possible 
only because life itself is an uninterrupted process of taking in and 
using up certain constituents. 

But a further consequence of this is, that spontaneity, the power 
of self-movement, denotes only momentary — not complete and 
continued— independence of external influences. Life depends on 
a definite relation of reciprocity between the organism and its 
environment, and would soon come to an end if this relation were 
entirely suspended. — Absolute spontaneity would be a consumption 
of one's own fat, which could support life only for a brief space. 

Spontaneity is only quantitatively different from irritability^ the 
power of responding to external stimulation in a special manner, 
that is to say by a movement differing in strength and possibly in 
kind from the stimulus. Its independence becomes of value to 
the organism only through this power, which makes adaptation to 
circumstances possible. The ultimate explanation of irritability 
also is to be looked for in organic process, and especially in the 
great instability of organic matter. Thus there are infinitesimal 
forces, producing the greatest effects on the retina and in the brain, 
and occasioning muscular contractions or chemical processes within 
the organism.^ 

3. In those higher organisms, too, which are endowed with a 
central nervous system, a distinction between spontaneity and 
irritability is justified. It does not seem possible to explain all the 
movements of such organisms as reflex. There maybe a discharge 
of the energy accumulated in the central ganglia without any 
excitation whatsoever of an afferent nerve. This is true in the 
highest degree of those centres of respiration and circulation situ- 
ated in the medulla oblongata. A change in the condition of the 

1 Waldeyer, tJher die Emfachsten Lebensdicssericiigen der Or o-an7S7;ien (R.edeheider 
Naturforscherversammlung in Hamburg, 1876) (" On the Simplest Manifestations of Life 
in the Organism," Address before the Natural Science Association at Hamburg, 1876). 
M. Foster, Textbook of Physiology^ pp. 2, 74. — V2ccv\xva^ Nervevdvets Fysiologi i^'' Vh.y^\- 
ology of the Nerve-tissue "), pp. 6Q-72. 

2 Pfliiger, ijherdie Physiologische I'erbfennitngiji den Lebendigen Organisuten ("On 
Physiological Combustion in Living Organisms") {^Archiv fit?- Physiologie, vol. 10. 
?875)j 311- 



3IO OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

blood (through the accumulation of carbonic acid) here takes the 
place of the external stimulus. The blood has at once both a 
nourishing and a stimulating effect. The condition of the blood, 
moreover, may directly affect the higher centres, whence arise 
automatic or spontaneous ideas (dream-images, hallucinations) and 
movements. 

Bain ^ maintains that the earliest movements are always of this 
description, and that movement of this sort co-operates in all move- 
ment whatever. His view is that the energy accumulated during a 
process of nourishment seeks discharge and finds it along those 
motor nerve- tracks which were previously prepared, the organism 
thus setting itself in motion without waiting for an external 
stimulus. Bain, whose view is an extension of suggestions made 
by Joh. Miiller, quotes in its support the first movements of the 
foetus, awaking from sleep happening without change in external 
conditions, the strong impulse to movement in young animals and 
children, the superior vivacity and pleasure in movement of men 
and animals in the morning and when well nourished, and finally 
the special energy possessed by men of what may be called a 
" volitional constitution.^^ Movement, then, precedes sensuous per- 
ception, and is at first independent of outer stimuli. It is more 
intimately and inseparably bound up with our nature than is 
sensuous perception. Man is capable of extraordinary activity 
quite independently of what he sees, hears, and thinks ; his per- 
cepts and thoughts are important in determining the direction of 
movement, but do not cause it to begin. — As Fichte taught, the 
most original thing in us is the impulse to action ; it is given 
before the consciousness of the actual world, and cannot be derived 
from it. 

Quite recently Preyer has declared in favour of Bain's view, as 
follows : — " How, then, are the first movements in the embryo to be 
accounted for ? That they do not result from passive contact, I 
am convinced from special observations made on the chicken in 
the egg — which moves, as I found, from the beginning of the fifth 
day. Movements of the trunk take place first, then also of the 
extremities and head, . . . without the smallest change in the sur- 
roundings and long before reflex activity exists at a*ll. . . . The ^"^ 
origin of these remarkable primitive movements of the trunk in 
unborn animals must lie, then, within themselves and cannot be 

1 The Senses and the Intellect^ book I., chap, i; TJi.e Emotions and the Will, ii., 
chap. I. 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 311 

attributed to the reaction of the superficial parts on the central. 
. . . The cerebrum has nothing to do with them, for the same 
movements take place in brainless abortions and headless embryos. 
The explanation must be that during the formation of the motor- 
ganglia cells in the spinal cord, there accumulates a certain 
quantity of potential energy, which may quite easily be turned into 
kinetic energy by the current of blood or lymph, or even by the 
swiftly advancing growth of tissue." ^ 

The independence of sense-impressions, which these spontaneous 
movements indicate, clearly cannot be absolute. Important as is 
the possibility of setting up those activities of most moment in the 
preservation of life without waiting for external stimulus, it is 
equally important on the other hand that there should be the power 
of accommodation to external relations. Important as it is that 
from the first the organism should actively confront the external 
world, it is equally important that its activity should admit of 
determination by the nature of its surroundings. There may be 
such accommodation and determination even before consciousness, 
by means of reflex movement {cf, 11. 4 b.). In this, movement is 
not immediately brought about by the internal state, but by a 
stimulus from the external world or from a part of the organism ; — 
and so, in a purely mechanical way, more or less purposive move- 
ments are set free in response to the stimulus. It is a disputed 
point how far such " purposive " reflex-movements are accompanied 
by consciousness ; but even if they are accompanied by a faint 
consciousness (as appears to be the case in the foetus) they are 
certainly not the fruit of conscious deliberation. Elementary 
feelings and sensations may possibly be present, but they are not 
subjected to any further elaboration. The direct transition from 
excitation to movement is, indeed, characteristic of reflex movement. 
Reflex action is just as involuntary as spontaneous movement."" 

The simplest reflex movement would be one set up by a single 
excitation. As soon as several excitations occur together, their 
effect will turn upon the fact of the movements, which they 
severally tend to bring about, harmonizing or not. If the excita- 
tions have a tendency to set up movements not admitting of com- 
bination, it becomes a question of which movement is the strongest ; 
this, though somewhat weakened by opposition, will determine the 
result. A frog, deprived of the cerebrum, croaks if its back is 
gently stroked ; but if its hind leg is at the same time powerfully 

1 Die Seele des Khides, p. 127, seq. (Eng. trans, i. p. 201), 



312 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

stimulated, it does not croak. — The most effective inhibitions to 
reflex movement come from the cerebrum. In the first years of 
childhood, while this organ is as yet undeveloped, no reflex move- 
ments are inhibited. 

4. When the cerebrum has a share in determining movements, 
there arises a spontaneity of a higher kind. Because of its wealth 
in cells this organ can both subject the impulses which it receives 
from without to a thorough elaboration, and initiate active 
movements independently of the excitation of the moment. With 
these movements consciousness is undoubtedly present. 

In so far as a line can be drawn between reflex movement and 
instt7tct, it must be by describing instinct as more complex, more 
active, and more conscious than reflex movement. In instinctive 
movements we seem to have a combined system of means directed 
to an end that lies outside the individual's present field of 
consciousness, and that he may not live to realize. Instead 
of the momentary discharge which we have in spontaneity and 
elementary reflex movement, there is the direction of various 
powers to a more or less distant end. Stimulus is required to set 
instinct to work, but the action is determined far more by the 
motor-tendencies implanted in the individual than by the nature 
of the stimulus. This latter serves only as the opening of a valve. 
This is why an animal is so easily deceived, as, e.g., when an insect, 
misled by the smell, lays its eggs on the " carrion plant." The 
incentive is so strong that the excitation is subjected to no control. 
In the case of an instinct meeting with obstacles, an impulse to 
carry out the instinctive movement may be excited (cf. IV. 4 ; 
VI. B. 2 c). 

It is not quite clear whether or no instinct is linked with the 
cerebrum. Already Flourens showed that the removal of the latter 
causes the destruction of the feeding and the sexual instincts. 
Goltz reports of several of his dogs that, after removal of consider- 
able portions of the cerebral cortex, they no longer shrank with 
disgust from eating dog's-flesh. But, on the other hand, there is 
very clear evidence of instinct in creatures whose cerebrum is yet 
undeveloped (as in the feeding instinct of new-born infants). 
Hence it seems probable that instinctive movements may have 
their source also in the mesencephalon (the corpora striata and 
the optic thalami).! 

Volition proper, on the other hand, is linked with the cerebrum, 

1 Vulpian, Physiol, d^i Syst. Nerv., p. 692, seq. 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 313 

Volition proper is characterized psychologically by the ideas of the 
end of the action and the means to its realization, and by a 
vivid feeling of the worth of that end. The phenomena of 
volition are thus so closely connected with cognition and feeling 
that to ascribe to them a separate seat would be to revive the 
errors of phrenology. On this point the latest inquirers are at one 
(see IL, 4 d). Not so, however, with respect to the initiation of 
movement. If those investigators are right who assume motor- 
centres in the cerebrum, then the transition from conscious to 
motor organs takes place here ; those centres being necessary 
media in directing the volition to the motor nerve-tracks.^ But 
if those are right who, with Goltz, deny that motor-centres in the 
cerebrum can be assumed, then that transition does not take place 
till the tracks connecting the cerebrum and the lower parts of 
the brain are reached.^ If for any reason the transition from 
the will (or rather from the corresponding physiological processes) 
to the motor nerve-tracks is interrupted, then there is incapacity 
to carry out what is willed, although the will itself is not wanting. 
In the slighter cases of aphasia (or better agraphia), which are not 
accompanied by word-blindness, the patient sees the word before 
him and endeavours to copy it, but writes it wrongly and is unable, 
in spite of all his endeavours, to remedy the mistake. Motor- 
presentations, and with them the possibility of an innervation of 
the motor-centres, are completely lost {cf. above, p. 147, note). 
Dogs which have been deprived of large portions of the front 
brain are unable, although they try, to carry out the movements 
desired.^ 

5. The backward history (Vorgeschichte) of volition must needs 
lead us beyond the limits of psychology, agreeably to the law 
that the unconscious precedes the conscious. On the other hand, 
the history will be properly understood only after acquaintance has 
been made with the phenomena of the will in actual consciousness. 
The psychological connection of will with the other conscious 
elements must now be pointed out. 

Psychologically, we speak of volition wherever we are conscious 
of activity, and are not entirely receptive. But the psychology of 
cognition and of feeling has shown that we never are purely 

1 Wundt, i., p. 156, seg. (3rd ed. i. pp. 218, ^^^.)-— Panum, Nervevdvets Fysiologi 
("The Physiology of the Nerve-tissue"), pp. 205, 223. 

2 Goltz in Pfluger's Archiv, vol. 26, 1881, pp. 36-37. Munk, liber die Fnnktioncn der 
Grosshirnrinde (" On the Functions of the Dura Mater"), p. 52. 

? Goltz in Pfluger's Archiv^ vol. 34, 1884, p. 475. 



314 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

receptive. In all sensuous perception, in all thought and all 
feeling, there is some activity on the part of the individual. 
Absolute passivity would be reached only if it were possible to 
represent consciousness as a series of single sensations with 
passive after-effects. A single and passive sensation appears, 
however, to be an abstraction, only approximately realized under 
certain abnormal conditions. Now since it has been shown 
to be the most essential feature of consciousness, that all the 
individual elements and states are united through one synthetic 
activity, it may be said that to volitional activity is due the 
existence of consciousness itself. (Cf. II. 5 ; V. Z?. 5, 8 c). It is 
not, then, correct to say that the will presupposes cognition and 
feeling, for these latter, looked at from one side, are themselves 
manifestations of will in the wider sense of the term. 

The stronger the individual sensations and ideas are in them- 
selves, the more does the volitional activity fall into the background. 
Exclusive sensations have a tendency to bring about hypnotic 
states. Bonnet has observed with justice, that if a being were 
all its life to experience only one single sensation, and a sensation 
unvarying in intensity, it would have no will at all. We may add 
that such a being would have no consciousness either (see II. 5). 
Only just in the instant when the sensation makes its appearance 
would an elementary activity of will be excited, since the attention 
would be turned to the excitation. No excitation occurs without 
arresting the attention and calling forth more or less activity, which 
contributes to the most clear and explicit apprehension possible of 
the excitation. Together with the sensation, we notice more or less 
this involuntary instinctive atte7ttion; in any case it helps to give 
the momentary condition its special character. 

Change among sensations affords an opening for a somewhat 
higher form of volitional activity. When a new sensation emerges, 
it is more or less welcome according to the relation which it bears 
to preceding sensations. If it is in sharp opposition to them, or 
for any other reason excites discomfort, the mind will strive to 
repress it and to turn away from it. The contrary is the case, if 
(as with complementary colours) it affords a welcome relief or for 
any other reason brings about a feeling of pleasure. These move- 
ments of pleasure and pain are naturally as a rule so slight, that 
we are not clearly conscious of them ; and yet they determine in 
every single case the manner in which things shall present them- 
selves to us, since they lead to an involuntary selection, an elemen- 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WH.L 315 

ta7'y choice (V. A. 7) among the emerging sensations. As plants 
turn to the light, our perceptive faculties turn to that which excites 
pleasure and interest, and away from that which excites pain. 

The transition from involuntary to voluntary attentio7t and 
choice is effected gradually in the course of the development of the 
memory and of the free idea {cf, V. B^. The choice among 
emerging sensations can then be determined by earlier experiences. 
While involuntary attention has the character of instinct^ voluntary 
attention makes its appearance as an impulse^ being guided by an 
idea of that which it desires to perceive, and it is capable of 
development into clearly-conscious, choosing^ will. We inay deter- 
mine, for example, to follow certain melodies or a certain theme in 
a piece of music, or to listen to the timbre of one single instrument. 
The investigations into physiological time have shown how great 
an influence strained attention may have on the rapidity of per- 
ception, being even capable of anticipating the percept. The 
difference between voluntary and involuntary attention lies in this, 
that in the former the straining, the turning of the powers of the 
mind in a certain direction is present before the stimulus, w^hile in 
the latter this straining is produced only by the stimulus itself. 
Recognition (perception) naturally takes place more quickly and 
easily when we have ready in consciousness a preliminary idea of 
the phenomenon, and it is precisely the gathering of energy round 
some one idea as the centre of association, that constitutes atten- 
tion. The fusion of the sensation with the corresponding idea, 
whence perception arises, thus takes place in inverse order in 
voluntary and in involuntary attention. — We see in great measure 
what we wish to see, and as a general rule are able to see only 
what we wish. Hence the possibility of strokes of genius 
and prophecies, as also of illusory interpretations of facts. The 
originally sanguine tendency of human nature anticipates experi- 
ence, and only gradually and often reluctantly accepts correction 
from it. Fortunately experience has the power *to open our eyes 
and force us to see. But the activity of the will is always an 
essential condition. 

Voluntary attention (like apprehension in general) may also be 
directed to mere ideas, memory-images or imaginations. The 
endeavour to call forth and retain these is accompanied by a 
feeling of effort, similar to that w^hich we have in trying to observe 
a dark object. This sensation appears, however, to be differently 
localized, Fechner has called attention to the fact — which the ex- 



3i6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

perience of every individual will confirm — that while in voluntary 
perception of external objects there is a feeling of tension in 
the sense organ chiefly affected, this wholly vanishes when 
memory or imagination becomes active, and appears as tension 
and contraction in the skin of the head, and as pressure from 
without inwards on the entire skull. ^ This muscular tension 
is not, however, always present, and is not, in any case, the whole of 
the physiological process connected with attention. It is possible 
that impulses return from the centres with which the voluntary 
concentration of consciousness is linked, to the centres of sensuous 
perception (as in other cases to motor-centres), in which way their 
effect may be strengthened.^ This would be the physiological form 
of the psychological fact that an idea becomes clearer if we give 
ourselves up to picturing it. Some individuals can even call forth 
voluntary hallucinations. Finally, Carpenter has tried to establish 
the theory that in attention as in all volitional activity there is a 
pressure of blood on the organ whose function is strengthened. 
In the endeavour to retain an idea or a train of thought, this in- 
creased pressure of blood would occur in certain parts of the cerebrum 
(ideational hyperaemia). The influence which all stir of feeling 
has on the circulation of the blood is in favour of this view. In all 
volition there is in fact some stir of feeling.^ 

An activity of will is present not least in the retention of the con- 
nectio7i between our ideas and in all thought. This activity is 
necessary to prevent purely fortuitous associations of ideas from 
taking the lead in the arrangement of the elements of con- 
sciousness. As a waking is distinguished from a sleeping state 
by the stronger ^'latent innervation" which prevents the body from 
falling into positions determined purely by gravity, so a waking is 
distinguished from a dreaming consciousness by the more or less 
conscious direction of all thoughts to a single end. In its most 
primitive form this end is the knowledge of the external world, 
as a means to the maintenance of existence. But even at the 
highest stages of mental development, a purpose and a feeling 
aroused by this purpose rule the course of thought. The more 

1 Elemente der PsycJiophysik, ii., pp. 475, 491. The expression of a person sunk in 
thought is especially remarkable for the undetermined direction of the eyes : their lines of 
vision are often even divergent on account of the relaxation of certain muscles consequent 
on the concentration of tension on other organs. The head is usually sunk, equally on 
account of muscular relaxation. Darwin, Expr. of Emot., 2nd ed., p. 239. 

^ Wundt, i., p. 218 seg. (3rd ed. i., p. 233 ^^^.).— Kussmaul, Die Stornngen der Sprache^ 
p. 187. 

2 Mental Physiology, p. 382. seq. 



Vii] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 317 

such a mental centre of gravity (the real self, cf. V. B. 5) is 
wanting, the more disconnected will consciousness become, until 
at last it will be resolved into momentarily changing ideas. 

In involuntary as in voluntary attention, feeling and will act 
in immediate conjunction. Several of the phenomena coming 
under the present head might, therefore, have been dealt with 
in the chapter on the psychology of feeling. The unity of mental 
life becomes evident here, when we consider the importance of 
attention in sensuous perception and thought, the intimate union 
of the feeling and the will, and the union, deeper than all association 
between ideas, of the feeling and the idea. 

6<^. Before tracing further the development of the will in its 
interaction with cognition and feeling, we must note how the 
will gradually brings bodily movements under its control. This 
is the first important course of training for the will, and is 
so important that motor-ideas have even been considered as 
essential elements of all conscious volition. To all appearance 
action is always outwardly directed ; but there is constantly pre- 
supposed an inner action^ a determining of the ideas by the 
thought of the end. The thought of the end is thus the most im- 
portant element, and it becomes only a special, if a frequent, case, 
when the thought of the end attracts and determines motor-ideas. 

The condition for the formation of motor-ideas, is that move- 
ments shall be made, which are felt. As has been seen, the 
organism does not wait for external incentives to set it in motion ; 
it is itself a little world with the power of creating incentives from 
within. Spontaneous and reflex movements are the material 
which serves as the basis of the motor-ideas. By involuntary in- 
centive we are thus led to acquire the experiences necessary for the 
development of the externally directed will. 

As the psychology of cognition begins with the sensation^ so 
the psychology of the will ends with the motor-impulse. Only 
indirectly do we learn what precedes the sensation — the trans- 
mission, namely, of the physical excitation from the object to 
our sense-organ, and thence through the nerve-fibres to the brain — 
and what succeeds the motor-impulse — the transmission, namely, 
of the physiological process corresponding to the act of volition, 
through the central motor-organs and nerves, to the muscles, 
together with the changes in the exte-rnal world produced by 
muscular movements. 

In the most primitive expressions of the will the distinction be- 



3i§ OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vil 

tween sensation and motor-impulse does not yet appear. Reflex 
movements and instinctive actions are characterized by the fact 
that the excitation immediately sets up movement ; a sensation 
may, indeed, be felt, and also a feeling of pleasure or pain together 
with a certain disquiet (especially if the movement is not at once 
executed or meets with obstacles) ; but memory, and consequently 
motor-memories, play no part. A motor-impulse presupposes the 
memory of executed movement. This may be either the memory 
of the appearance of the 7noveinent or a motor-idea proper (repro- 
duction of the motor-sensation). 1 If the movement has had un- 
favourable, painful consequences, its memory-image will be 
associated with pain, which may prevent the repetition of the 
movement when the same state of consciousness reappears. On 
the other hand there will be a tendency to the repetition of move- 
ments, the execution and consequences of which were attended 
with pleasure. 

If attention is turned to a motor-idea when we are already pre- 
disposed to execute the movement, we accomplish it quickly and 
easily. This pre-disposition or internal preparation^ — by means of 
which a movement is, as it were, adopted or fixed in consciousness, 
since we become absolutely one with the motor-idea and the cor- 
responding feeling, — does not admit of more minute description. 
It is the fundamental element in the consciousness of an intended 
movement, and can be known only by direct introspection, as is the 
case generally with the internal process by which we call out and 
retain an idea or a train of thought. As in memory I identify 
myself with the self that experienced an event in the past, so the 
decisive act of volition consists in the thought of my present self 
as acting in a certain manner in a more or less distant future. 
While memory is directed to the past, is m-3im\Y passive perception^ 
the act of volition is directed to the future, is mainly active per- 
ception. 

The will and the motor-impulse are not entirely coincident, but 
the latter is an element of the former when the act of volition con- 
cerns an externally directed movement, just as the impulse.to think, 
i.e. the incentive to set up a certain series of ideas, is in thought 
proper an element of the volition {cf V. B. 1 1). I will to see a definite 
object, and therefore direct my eyes to it ; but the impulse to move 
the eyes need not appear as something independent beside the will 

1 As already mentioned (VII. A. 4), memories of the appearance of movements may 
be preserved, although motor-ideas proper have dropt out. 



vii] the: psychology of the will 319 

to see the object. And similarly, when the will aims at following a 
train of ideas ; the impulse to stir up each separate member of this 
train does not appear as something independent beside the will to 
think of the thing as a whole, except, indeed, where special 
difficulties have to be overcome. When the movement necessary 
to the attainment of an end meets with opposition, it may become 
the object of express volition. 

The intended movement is often carried out without either impulse 
or volition stirring at the moment of its accomplishment. Thus the 
investigations into physiological time have proved that if prepara- 
tion is made to execute a certain movement at a given signal, the 
movement comes involuntarily, no time being required to set it up, 
and no fresh volition being necessary. Conversely it takes some 
time to undo that state of preparation, or, as it were, to annul the first 
volition ; and if the signal occurs before this is accomplished, the 
movement may be set up with or without our will. It may happen, 
for example, that a signal expected with strained attention is kept 
back, and the person making the experiment turns round im- 
patiently to see if the apparatus is out of order ; that then the signal 
sounds, and the movement previously intended but now given up 
simultaneously takes place.-*- The preparation for the movement 
still takes effect, although the act of will has given way. By thus 
preparing, in the event of a given signal, to carry out a certain 
movement, the person making the experiment puts himself in a 
condition analogous to that of an animal guided by instinct, or to 
that which moves an individual to obey commands received in a 
state of somnambulism and afterwards entirely forgotten. 

{b) Nature paves the way for our volition. But she gives us at 
once too much and too little. The original spontaneous movement 
is strong ; but it has to be guided into a definite direction, and 
modified in degree and form, before it can serve for our purposes. 
In involuntary movements several muscles are set in activity at 
once. It then becomes sometimes important to resolve these 
conjoint movements, and to form instead of them other complex 
movements, so that a process of selection is carried on, which leads 
partly to isolation^ partly to combination of movements. 

In this way the voice organs are at first involuntarily moved, as 
the child gives vent to its dissatisfaction or to its satisfaction. Of 
the sounds thus produced, it is especially those which showed 

1 SIgm. Exner, Experimentelle U ntcrstichungcn dcr cinfachsten psychischcn Pro- 
sesse {Vf^ug^r's, Archiv. 1883), p. 616, seq. 



320 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vil 

themselves conducive to pleasant effects, that are afterwards re- 
tained. This is the child's first language, succeeded by the 
period in which it tries to imitate what it hears. Similarly with 
many other movements of the body ; at first they are produced in- 
voluntarily and at random, but afterwards are either retained and 
repeated or inhibited and suppressed. At first no reflex movements 
are inhibited, but education represses them more and more (as 
when a child becomes accustomed to cleanliness). The little child, 
whose cerebrum has as yet no active influence, lacks the central 
controlling apparatus which is the condition of self-restraint. The 
development of voluntary movement presupposes a certain de- 
velopment of ideas, consequently also of the brain. 

A child undertakes many movements wholly instinctively, as 
soon as it has the strength for them. According to Preyer, a 
child sucks, bites, smacks its lips, chews, and licks, just as 
instinctively as a chicken picks up corn and insects. The same 
holds good in great measure of sitting, standing, creeping, 
walking and running. Imitation plays even here a subordinate 
part ; at the most it serves as an encouragement. Even a child 
who had never seen any one crawl or walk would execute these 
movements as soon as it had strength enough.^ Movements are 
really willed only when they are made with a definite intention 
and directed to a definite end. The earliest and most important 
examples of this are the movements of grasping, where the desire 
to take possession of an object causes a movement of the hand 
towards it and its seizure. 

The limits to the isolation and combination of movements, lie 
in the nature of the organism. There are conjoint movements 
which cannot be resolved, and independent movements which 
cannot be combined. — The extent to which practice and accommo- 
dation can go may be seen from the Siamese twins, whose bodies 
had grown into one, and who had brought their movements into 
such harmony that, as necessity required, and without preconcerted 
signal, they could walk, run, and jump just as though they had been 
one single individual. 

{c) This process, by which the will obtains such power over the 
body, that the individual can confront the external world with 
energy and concentration, goes on more slowly in men than in 
animals. Kittens go through their necessary course of education 
in less than a month, while children need nearly two years for 

1 Preyer, Die Seeh des Kindes, pp. 146-176 (Eng. trans, i. 235-281). 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 321 

theirs. This difference shows the importance of the inherited 
basis. Since the movements of men are self-acquired to a much 
greater extent than those of animals, injury of the motor-centres 
in the brain produces much more effect in them than in the latter.-^ 
Conformably to a general physiological law, in a process of dis- 
solution the more lately developed and exercised functions give 
way sooner than the more elementary {cf. IV. 4 ; Y, B. y b). 

The importance of the inherited basis may be seen, too, in a 
comparison between normal and idiotic children. Except by 
special and wearisome instruction, the latter are not able to 
learn the use of their senses and motor-organs. " Even in 
the lesser degrees of idiotcy, an idiot may be easily recognized 
through his lack of a proper glance and of a firm carriage of the 
body. The lack of a proper glance is shown in some idiots by a 
lifeless stare, in others by wild rolling of the eyes ; the lack of a 
firm carriage, with some, in the form of constant immobility and 
dulness, together with a certain disposition to a uniform swinging 
or circular movement of some parts of the body — with others, in 
the form of perpetual unrest and aimless working of the arms and 
legs." Education consists, therefore, here also in a selection, which 
becomes effective partly by the strengthening of some movements, 
partly by the inhibiting and neutralizing of others. The inertia 
must be counteracted, and the restless and disorderly play of the 
muscles constrained. In education it is customary to start from 
the given basis. A girl idiot who incessantly swung her body 
and flourished her arms and legs, was made to wind thread, by 
which means the restless movements were directed to a definite 
end, which could afterwards itself serve as a motive to movement 
through the satisfaction excited. It was attempted to inhibit over- 
strong movement, by causing the patients to run up and down 
in the garden until constrained by fatigue to remain quite still.^ 



B. — The Will and the other Elements of Consciousness, 

I. The higher development of the will^ as conditio7ied by the 
development of cognition and of feeling. 

(a) No consciousness, as already frequently observed, can be 
conceived that is resolvable into absolutely simple, momentary 

1 Panum, Nervevdvets Fysiologii^^'Y\\^e. Physiology of the Nerve-tissue"), p. 218. 

2 Eschricht, Oin Muligheden of at Helbrede og Opdrage Idioter (" On the Possibility 
of Curing and Educating Idiots "), p. 7, 66. 



322 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

sensations. A certain degree of memory, and with it a certain 
duality, a weaker or stronger opposition between two currents, must 
always be assumed. But the relation between the two currents 
may vary to infinity. We have already seen that the opposition 
between sensuous perception and thought passes through a whole 
scale of degrees, and that the same is true of the opposition between 
elementary and ideal feelings. In the province of the will a similar 
opposition is met with : between instinct and volition proper. 
Instinct involves no proper memory {cf, IV. 4, and VII. A, 4), 
but is called into being by immediate sensations ; it ^ stands 
therefore on a level with the elementary feelings, which are 
similarly determined by mere sensations. The transition from 
instinct to volition proper is effected through the impulse, the wish 
and \hQ^ purpose. 

Impulse, we have already had to describe in the psychology of 
feeling (VI. B,2C', cf. also IV. 4), and it has been referred to also 
in the inquiry into the originality of the will. 

In impulse, consciousness is already freed from the control of 
momentary impressions. A striving beyond the momentary state 
makes itself felt, the equilibrium is destroyed. The psychological 
condition of the impulse is, that with the momentary feeling and 
sensation should be combined a more or less clear idea of 
something which may augment the pleasure, or diminish the 
pain of the moment. Impulse involves a contrast between the 
actual and a possible or future. This is what distinguishes it from 
reflex movement and instinct {A. 4), where the excitation may 
perhaps cause a sensation, but where no idea asserts itself of 
what must follow. In impulse proper there lies always a more 
or less conscious demand.- In the wider sense of the term, impulse 
embraces all tendencies to movement which are accompanied by 
feeling and sensation. It would be best, if it were possible, to avoid 
the use of the word " impulse '' in psychology, except in the narrower 
sense, as something distinct from reflex movement and mstmct. 
But this the customary use of language does not permit ; it is 
unavoidable even in psychology to speak of an impulse of self- 
preservation, an impulse to movement, and so forth, as a short 
and contracted way of expressing unconscious or semi-conscious 
tendencies to movement. Moreover, as will have become clear 
from the above, experience shows numerous intermediate links 
between the different stages and kinds of movement. These may 
so far be represented as different forms of the development of 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 323 

impulse, culminating in desire^ where the end of movement is 
the object of distinct consciousness. — Impulse proper and desire 
are distinguished from mere instinct in possessing always an idea 
of the end, though not always of the means, while instinct leads 
to means being applied to an unconscious end. Instinct is a 
manifestation of impulse in so far as the actions and movements 
leading to the end become the object of ideation and of interest. 

In the psychology of feeling and in that of will, impulse is 
observed from different sides. It includes, namely, both a feeling 
of pleasure or of pain and an incentive to activity, directed to the 
(real or supposed) cause of the pleasurable or painful feeling. 
These two sides of impulse must not be confused or confounded, 
though language might easily lead us to do so, since we speak of 
taking pleasure in a thing in the sense of mere feeling, and taking 
pleasure in something in the sense of striving after. Nor must the 
relation between them be so conceived, that the object of impulse 
is supposed to be always a feeling of pleasure (or the removal of a 
feeling of pain). The statement that all impulse (and especially 
all will) tends towards the attainment of pleasure or the removal of 
pain, has often been thought to afford a simple and incontro- 
vertible proof that egoistic motives are at the bottom of all action 
and volition. 

The account of impulse we have already given shows the un- 
tenability of this view. Because the end or the object of the 
impulse is something that excites, or seems to excite, pleasure, it 
need not necessarily be the feeling of pleasure itself. The impulse 
is essentially determined by an idea, is a striving after the content 
of this idea. In hunger, e.g, the impulse has reference primarily to 
the, food, not to the feeling of pleasure in its consumption. The 
impulse to cognition is not directed to the joy of cognizing but 
to the object cognized, it is this that is desired. The sympathetic 
impulses, e.g.^ the impulse to mitigate the sorrows or to promote 
the welfare of others, are guided by the idea of the improved con- 
dition of others, depicted more or less in the imagination, as also 
by that of the pleasure they feel in their improved condition, — but 
it is not in the least necessary for the idea of the pleasure afforded 
to us by the sight of their improved condition to make itself felt 
cf. VI. C. 7). It is the result of a distinct abstraction, when the 
feeling of pleasure, which we foresee in the attainment of the 
original > object of the impulse, arouses our impulse. Such an 
abstraction is always more or less morbid and leads to egoism, if it 

Y 2 



324 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

is unduly kept in mind and applied, since the idea of our own self 
as the subject of the feeling will, from the nature of the case, obtrude 
itself and determine the impulse, will become the constant thought 
in the background. 

The justice and force of this distinction will be easily seen, if we 
consider the affinity of impulse with instinct and with the other 
half or wholly unconscious tendencies to movement. The actions 
induced by these are directed to no feeling of pleasure, but to 
certain definite objects which do not come into the consciousness 
of the individual. In instinct the individual has no consciousness 
either of the end of the action or of the feeling of pleasure to 
which its attainment will conduce. Impulse is distinguished 
from these tendencies to movement principally through the 
consciousness of the end or object of the action, but there is a 
further step: before the consciousness of the pleasure which the 
object will bring with it can arise. The motive, the moving force 
of the impulsive action (as also of the properly volitional action) is 
the feeling excited by the idea of the end, but not (at any rate not 
at first or always) the feeling which is excited by the idea that we 
shall feel pleasure on attaining the end. 

It is true that there is usually a certain harmony between the 
impulse and the satisfaction induced by the attainment of what the 
impulse aimed at. This harmony is due partly to the connection 
of impulse with instinct, partly to the fact that the end of the 
impulse is originally the cause of feeling (VI. B. 2 c). But it is not 
necessary that this harmony should be perfect. Some of the most 
remarkable of psychological phenomena arise from just the fact, 
that a discordance is possible between the strength of the impulse 
and the pleasure caused by its satisfaction. An impulse may by 
very frequent excitement and gratification take such deep root in 
nature as to obtain the control, even when no pleasure of a strength 
corresponding to the energy of the impulse is afforded by it. In 
all passion (cf. VI. E. 5) this discordance occurs more or less, and 
hence the special feeling of want of freedom which may be present 
when passion prevails. With the drunkard, the passionate craving 
is far stronger than the pleasure accompanying its gratification. 
The impulse to self-preservation may be roused with irresistible 
force, even when it is not possible to discover what joy continued 
existence can cause. This relation is of especial importance in 
the impulses which are connected with the disinterested feelings. 
The impulse to be absorbed in something, to work for an idea or to 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 325 

sacrifice self for others, may be so strong that it could find nothing 
like sufficient reason in the feeling of pleasure conferred on the 
individual in consequence of the action. 

After a time, however, this want of harmony between feeling and 
impulse becomes unendurable. Either the impulse will be weakened 
and disappear, or the feeling will be more strongly inflamed. A 
certain harmony between the impulses and the conditions of life, 
and consequently between the impulses and the feelings caused 
by their gratification, must always be brought about ; continued 
development in contrary directions would lead to destruction 
{cf.Yl.D.3). 

Of the two sides of the nature of impulse, feeling and activity, 
the latter is the more deeply imbedded. This follows from the 
general principle that unconscious movement precedes conscious. 
Spontaneous, reflexive, instinctive and impulsive activity is the 
beginning of life ; as ideation and feeling gradually develop, they 
come to determine the activity ; but this, in its most primitive 
form, is present before them. 

It is a momentous juncture when a definite idea unites with the 
feeling of pleasure or of pain, and so becomes an expression for the 
object of the impulse {cf. VI. B. 2 a^ b). The movement is hereby 
guided into a definite direction, and cannot be changed into another 
without a definite exercise of force. Once impulse is aroused, the 
equilibrium is destroyed, and it is then a question of whether the 
movement can ho kept under control. — It is not the learned, nor is 
it the absolutely ignorant, who strive after knowledge ; for this 
strife to be excited, there must be a painful sense of ignorance 
accompanied by the idea of something better than ignorance. — It 
is at this stage that revolutions arise in the internal and in the 
external world. The extreme of suffering checks and overwhelms ; 
movement breaks out only when so much mitigation and progress 
are attained that the idea of a better condition may make itself 
felt, whatever may be the means of attaining it. The promoters of 
revolutions are neither the free nor the enslaved, but the semi-free. 
As Tocqueville has observed, the most dangerous moment for a bad 
Government is that in which it begins to improve. The smallest 
acts of tyranny under Louis XVI. seemed harder to bear than all 
the despotism of Louis XIV.-^ The recent history of Russia affords 
exactly parallel examples. 

{b) If the life of ideas is somewhat further developed, there may 

1 V Aiicien Regime et la Revolution^ livre ii., chap. i. ; livre iii., chap. 4. 



326 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

arise thoughts of ends, whose attainment would afford pleasure, but 
which do not set the impulse immediately in motion. Such ends 
and the feelings determined by them correspond to the free memory 
images in the sphere of cognition : just as the latter need not 
necessarily be produced by present sensations, so also it is not 
necessary for the former to move at once to action. This is what 
distinguishes the wish from the impulse. Wishes, from a purely 
practical point of view, are a luxury. As compared with impulse, 
the wish is contemplative. On the other hand, however, the wish 
may be the first form of the impulse. What at first appears a 
distant possibility, the mere thought of which fills the mind with 
pleasure, may, when as constant thought it has become more part 
and parcel of ourselves, excite an impulse. 

{c) But the same higher development which makes the wish 
possible, will also produce the consciousness how important it is 
that action should not follow immediately upon the impulse, but 
that there should be an interval between the thought and its 
execution, so that ideas and feelings naturally associated with the 
thought of the end may come to the fore, and exercise an influence 
upon the action {cf, IV. 4-6). Such an interval may arise quite 
simply, by the action being prevented and by experience teaching 
how well it was that it could not be carried out ; the importance of 
the interval may also be impressed by wisdom learnt from suffering, 
namely, when the consequences of rash actions are seen ; and 
finally, it can be induced by the fact that the idea of the end is so 
closely connected with other ideas (the idea of the required means, 
for example), that these emerge at the same time, and so inhibit 
the impulse to movement. In cases of this kind — in which either 
the consequences of the action or the means to its execution make 
themselves felt in consciousness — the laws of association of ideas 
are operative. In Holberg's comedy Jeppe vom Berge^ J^PP^ did 
so want to drink another shilling's worth ; but his back ^ warned 
him of the consequences. " My stomach says you shall ; my back, 
you shall not." The association of ideas and the feelings excited 
thereby interpose, inhibiting the impulse or the wish of the moment. 
Besides the feelings excited by the association of ideas, other 
feelings may arise which inhibit the impulse or the wish, but 
through the effect of contrast (VI. E), 

Here the will sustains the same alteration observed in the transi- 
tion of elementary into ideal feeling. The action is determined by 

1 He was afraid of being beaten by his wife if he squandered in drink the money she 
had given him to buy soap. 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 327 

more comprehensive considerations than impulse and wish permit. 
Of course these wider considerations must originally make them- 
selves felt in the form of impulse or of wish ; the decisive feature is, 
however, that a single incentive is not immediately and solely in 
force. The process thus introduced, of which Jeppe's internal 
struggle at the door of the public-house affords a simple instance, 
may be developed into higher forms, the more comprehensive the 
association of ideas. Here the distinctness of the memory,^ the 
liveliness of the imagination and the clearness of the thought, 
become of great importance in the development of the will. The 
more firmly and clearly the thought of the remote, as compared 
with the momentary end, presents itself to consciousness, or the 
thought of the difficulty or disadvantage attending the action 
demanded by impulse and wish ; and the more powerful the feelings 
which this thought is able to excite — feelings in which the con- 
jectured consequences of the action are anticipated and enjoyed or 
suffered from — the more easily will the momentary incentive be 
inhibited, and the will determined by more remote or higher 
considerations. Even if the wish is stirred, it now remains a 
" vain " wish, the consciousness of the impossibility or unfitness of 
its realization coming into play. It then comes to be a trial of 
strength between the logic of the impulse and the higher logic. 
The impulse makes, according to its nature, directly for the object, 
and is capable of answering other considerations with sophisms 
(c/. VI. F, 2). Jeppe asks himself, " Is not my stomach more to 
me than my back ? I say, Yes " — and finally comforts himself 
with thinking that Jacob the cobbler (the host) will give him credit, 
although he knows perfectly that he won't. The more firmly the 
wish is established, the greater the difficulty which other thoughts 
may have in preventing its actualization. 

Psychologically, it is a question only of the strength, not of the 
worth, of the forces determining the action. The momentary in- 
centive may be pernicious, but it may also be ethically justified 
and yet succumb, as in the suppression of enthusiasm by egoistic 
and prosaic considerations. It is then purely a question of what 
thoughts and memories are excited by the idea connected with the 
impulse, and what strength of feeling these can command as com- 
pared with the immediate incentive. If the object of the impulse 
or of the wish is adhered to in spite of scruples, its attainment is 

1 "Purpose is but the slave to memory," (Hamlet, Act iii., Sc. 2). Cf. Spinoza, 
Etk. iii., prop. 2, Schol. : "Nihil ex mentis decreto agere possumus, nisi ejus 
recordemur." 



328 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

made an aim^ and the aim further brings with it the purpose to 
undertake such actions as may contribute to its realization. 

When the momentary incentives are dominant, there is properly 
no inner centre, no self, of consciousness. But the more memory, 
and the dominant feelings determined by memory, obtain a hearing, 
the more does a man's nature as a whole, and not, merely a single, 
momentarily predominant side of it, obtain influence upon the 
action. A man's true self has its expression in the thoughts and 
feelings, which in the course of his life have taken deepest root in 
him {cf. V. B. 5). And only when the action is determined by this 
permanent core, can a man be said to have willed his action, to be 
self-determined. Now the cognitive, now the feeling, elements 
preponderate, so that a distinction may be drawn between a will 
governed by thought, and a will governed by feeling. It must 
here be remembered that the feeling which at the moment is the 
most violent, is not always the strongest in reality, that is to say, 
the most deeply rooted in the nature of the individual. It is the 
more important that the moment should not be the sole deter- 
minant ; for this reason again is the formation of the interval so 
important. 

Even the purpose is conditioned by such an interval, and by 
the ideas, feelings and impulses occupying it. A man who acts 
with purpose knows what he is doing (and for this reason impulse 
as compared with purpose, may be called blind, as instinct in 
comparison with impulse). But the purpose need not be deeply 
grounded in the self of the person willing ; it may (as is so 
frequently the case with impulse) owe its origin to a superficial 
movement of the mind. If the action to which the purpose is 
directed is to be a complete expression of self, then the idea of it 
must be brought into interaction with every important side of the 
self, that it may be made the object of a universal debate in con- 
sciousness. In such debate, which may take the character of a 
powerful and exhausting inner struggle, consists deliberation (or 
reflection), by which mere purpose becomes resolve^ since a 
choice is made among the possibilities offered. The difference 
between purpose or intention and resolve-^ is one of degree, but 
may be of extreme importance. It depends partly on the length 

1 As we say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions (not resolutions). In Danish 
criminal law a distinction is made between intentional homicide, punishable by the house 
of correction, and deliberate homicide, punishable by death (§ i86 and_§ 190). The relation 
between intention and deliberation is still more clearly brought out in German criminal 
law, which distinguishes between intentional homicide without deliberation, and intentional 
homicide with deliberation (§§ 2J1-212), 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 329 

of the interval, partly upon the depth and energy of the re- 
flection. 

The choice or resolve does not admit of a closer description. 
In the treatment of a particular case, the volition to execute a 
bodily movement (VII. A. 6 a)^ attention has already been called 
to this indescribable element in every volitional act. In resolution 
I wholly identify myself with the thought of the action ; it seems 
henceforth a part of myself, something pertaining to the inner- 
most essence of my being. I recognize myself (perceive myself) 
in the subject of the action, in that particular "moment," — the 
rejected possibilities seeming, as it were, to fade away or recede 
from me. 

By the closeness with which the volitional act in resolution and 
choice is adopted into our nature, is to be partly explained the 
sense of freedom accompanying strong resolves. The action is 
felt as a radiation of our own innermost being. This sense of 
freedom is, however, also due to the contrast with the uncertain, 
inhibitive and wavering state of mind during deliberation. So 
long as the deliberation lasts, no thought or impulse takes firm 
hold of the mind ; no sooner is the one thought followed up than 
its contrary comes to the fore and claims the attention. The con- 
tending feelings and impulses give rise to a more or less painful 
mental restlessness and mental disunion which may itself some- 
times become the motive for making a resolve. 

The resolve is the highest form of the will. It is mainly 
determined from_ within, not by the individual sensation or idea. 
Impulse knows but a single possibility, a single motive ; will proper 
develops through the interaction or the conflict of various motives 
and possibilities. It is often determined by something which 
lies far beyond the present moment, even beyond the possible 
experience of the individual, but which takes effect neverthe- 
less in his consciousness, is represented in it. The psychological 
intelligibility of the volitional act depends on the possibility 
of tracing the course of development of the individual, and of 
following it step by step up to the moment of action, each inter- 
mediate transition being explained according to general psycho- 
logical laws. This is of course an ideal ; but an approximation to 
it is the condition of all psychological research and of the practical 
life and occupations of man. 

2. The reaction of the will upon cognition and feeling. 

Such reaction takes place at all stages of the development of the 



330 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

will. It leads us into a tissue of psychological processes impossible 
to disentangle and survey. We must be content to discover cer- 
tain guiding points of view ; and (referring to previous sections 
for what relates to elementary phenomena) we shall here treat 
chiefly of the way in which the more highly developed will can 
exercise a determining and guiding effect upon cognition and 
feeling. 

{a) The reaction of the will upon cognition. 

As with externally directed movement, so also with the activity 
of ideation and thought, nature helps us forward before we our- 
selves play a conscious part. The involuntary activity forms the 
basis and the content of the voluntary. The will is in no way 
creative, but only modifying and selective. — Of this we will adduce 
some examples. 

(i) As already shown, we work our way out through numerous 
deceptions to the apprehension of reality. Prejudices, passions, 
and imperfect observations, lead us easily astray. Besides, there 
may sometimes arise involuntary hallucinations and illusions, 
with which, if the mind is otherwise sound at bottom, a hard 
struggle will be fought. Thus a patient once strove for twenty- 
seven years against hallucinations which tempted him to attack 
others. Even his best friends suspected nothing until the day 
when he declared himself vanquished, and took refuge in a lunatic 
asylum. — Conversely, some persons have the power of intentionally 
calling up hallucinations ; but it often happens to them as to 
Goethe's Zauberlehrling (" Apprentice Magician "), that the 
phantoms gain power over them and will not be again dis- 
persed.^ 

The flow of memories and ideas is subject to definite laws. If 
certain ideas can be intentionally produced or excluded, this is 
only by means of these same laws, just as it is only by means 
of its laws that external nature can be modified and made to serve 
our purposes. The condition of an intervention of the will in the 
flow of ideas, is that a searching, an interest, must come into play. 
If it is a question of checking or excluding an idea, this can be 
effected only indirectly, according to the " laws of obliviscence " 
(V. B, 8 d). If it is a question of calling up an idea, a need 
must first be excited, a wish or an impulse to have the idea must 
be stirred, which involves an indefinite idea of its place or its 
connection with other ideas. If of two ideas, a and b^ standing 

1 Brierre de Boismontj Des Hallucinations, 3rd ed., pp. 27, 427, seq., 525. 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 331 

in connection with one another, b disappears or is even unknown 
to us, although we observe that there is a place which must be 
filled up, then the concentration of attention upon a will make it 
the centre of association (VI. F, \) \ the ideas associated more or 
less closely with a^ will then rise up, and be persistently rejected, 
until one is presented which stands in the precise relation to a of 
the idea required. The will gives the first impetus and acts as 
an auger, to use Goldschmidt's striking expression,^ but once a hole 
is bored, the water must flow out by virtue of its own force, and it 
only remains to us to compare what breaks out with what is 
sought for. 

The influence of the will upon the ideas is manifested, like its 
influence on the bodily movements, in the two forms of isola- 
tion and combination.' Partly a dissolution of the involuntary 
combinations of ideas, partly a formation of new combinations, 
may take place. The elaboration which ideas must undergo in 
order to become concepts, is effected in both ways. 

This " boring ^^ and voluntary intervention may be necessary, but 
does not always bring about so valuable a result as do involuntary 
suggestions. Intentional thoughts and images have, as a rule, 
a more abstract and 'paler character than those which emerge 
" of themselves." The thought is most successful which " carries 
us away.^^ 

(2) In an ethical connection it is of great importance that the 
thoughts and ideas on which the conduct of life is based should 
be made the subject of repeated observation and reflection.^ In 
this way they obtain a firmer hold in consciousness, and are 
consequently more easily recalled in all the changing relations 
of life, and with more difficulty suppressed by the impressions and 
passions of the moment. At the same time they gain in clearness 
and connectiveness, and so become better adapted to control 
action. 

(3) Not only does the will thus obtain in particular cases direct 
or individual influence upon the course of ideas, but moreover the 
development of the will in general reacts upon the thought, 
strengthening and modifying it. A firm resolve, carried out 
with decision and without hesitation, clears up the whole 
mental atmosphere and scatters the clouds which dim the clear- 
ness of thought ; it makes one single idea the central point of 

1 Goldschmldt, Erindringer ("Memories"),!., p. 183, seq. 

2 Cf. James Sully, *' On Some Elements of Moral Self-Culture" {^xi\v\s\Nox\ Sensation 
and Intuition^ London, 1874). 



332 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

consciousness, and obliges all other ideas to give way before 
this one, or to subordinate themselves to it. Hence arises a firm 
and systematic connection of consciousness. Sequence of thought 
and firmness of character are closely related. — And only through 
firm volition is actual self-consciousness possible. What is ex- 
pressed in the unity and the continuity of memory, and in 
immediate feeling of self, is completed in the act of will, in 
which all elements of consciousness co-operate with concentrated 
force. In our resolves and acts of will, the real unity of our 
" self" (V. B. 5) is most strikingly manifested ; in them we learn 
to know ourselves most clearly and best. 

{]}) The reaction of will upon feeling. 

It might seem as though involuntary rise and development 
were so characteristic of feehng, that no intervention of the will 
would be conceivable in it. The activity of the will is more 
indirect here than even in the flow of ideas, and its scope is quite 
certainly also more limited and conditional. There is, however, 
great theoretical and practical interest in seeing what paths are 
open to it. 

(i) Even if we cannot prevent a feeling from arising, we may 
possibly prevent it from spreading, by inhibiting the organic move- 
ment which accompanies it, and indulgence in which augments it. 
The art of self-control consists principally in such inhibition, since 
it cannot deal immediately with the feeling at its first stage. On 
the other hand, the concealment of a feeling may cause it to 
penetrate deeper into the nature of an individual. The result in 
any given case depends on the person's character, but in the long 
run, to check the indulgence and expression of the feeling will 
always have a weakening influence. 

Conversely, we may excite a feeling by first adopting the attitude 
proper to it, by putting on the correct expression and making the 
proper movements. Savages excite themselves for battle by violent 
dances. Participation in outer ceremonies may lead, according to 
Pascal's view, to real conversion. The frame of mind is certainly 
different in clenching and in folding the hands, in holding out 
the arms and in crossing them. A forcible contrast is especially 
apparent between the mood during muscular tension and that dur- 
ing muscular relaxation. — It is in this way that hypnotized persons 
can be put by the experimenter in different frames of mind.^ 

1 Carpenter, Mental Physiology^ pp. 602-605. Preyer, Die Entdecktmg des Hypno- 
tisnms^ pp. 36-41, 85. 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 333 

Campanella maintained that the feehngs of others might be clearly 
entered into by imitating their ways and movements. A visitor, 
who called on him when he was writing a letter, found him with 
the precise expression of countenance of the man to whom he was 
writing.-^ 

(2) Change in external conditions of life may prevent the birth 
of many feelings, or at any rate deprive them of sustenance. The 
power of customs and institutions rests on the influence of the con- 
ditions of life, and political reforms are indirect reforms of the life 
of feeling. Even our every-day habits and surroundings are often 
in this respect of great importance. By bringing ourselves under 
certain definite conditions, we may further or prevent the birth of 
certain feelings. Much which the will cannot aim at directly is 
attained, if we so pledge ourselves as to be unable afterwards to get 
free. There is a mental just as much as a bodily hygiene. 

(3) If the feeling cannot be modified in these ways, the diversion 
of the attention to another end may succeed. But if this is to be 
effected by personal endeavour, it is a necessary condition that the 
feeling of the moment shall not occupy the entire consciousness. 
The will cannot " bore '^ without definite points of departure ; and 
the first condition is therefore that there shall be a searching, a 
"hunger and thirst.^' If a man is wholly absorbed in his present 
state, if he " laughs and is full" (St. Luke vi. 25), there is no motive 
for a new feeling. The individual may, however, sometimes have 
the desire for a change of feeling, but not be able to take 
measures to effect it without help ; thus Lichtenberg desired 
" the first differential of impetus " to enable him to master his 
hypochondria. 

The feelings whose motive can be given by exertion of the 
will, all belong of course to the ideal feelings. The effort of the will 
develops feeling by means of the laws of association of ideas, 
through which it becomes possible for one new idea, retained 
in spite of its opposition to the powerful feeling, to be succeeded 
presently by others. The feelings which are most easily re- 
membered and suffer least by repetition, are also those which 
are most easily produced by way of inner effort. Through their 
great versatility, ideas become instruments in the service of the 
'will ; what I make my constant thought will gradually determine 
my feeling also. It is of course true of such feelings, as of the 

1 Vita Ca^npanellcB^ Autore E. S. Cypriano, Amstelod, 1722, p. 48 ; cf. also Burke, On 
the Sublime a7td Beautiful, part iv., sect. 4; Fechner, Vorschule der JEsthetik, i., 
p. 156, seq. 



334 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

ideas generated by voluntary effort, that they do not easily become 
so vivid as those which arise involuntarily. 

In order to obtain control over feeling, we must utilize the 
intervals between strong emotions. Education must in this 
respect necessarily precede self-education, and even after the 
matter has been taken into our own hands we need frequent aids 
(differentials of impetus) to prevent our sinking back. 

(4) A clear insight into its causes reacts upon the feeling, clear- 
ing it up and modifying it. The very endeavour to understand the 
ruling feeling will enable me to confront it with more freedom. 
— A feeling has as a rule an indefiniteness, which is a part of 
its power, and which may vanish before clear knowledge, as 
spectres before the light of day. — The need experienced by feeling 
for explanation and justification leads, as has been seen (VI. 
F. 4 ^), to whole theories and hypotheses being developed and 
elaborated ; when clear perception has acquired sufficient influence 
for the vanity of such theories to appear, this reacts upon the feel- 
ing. It is principally, however, insight into the causes of the feel- 
ing that is of great importance. It is a general experience that 
sorrow is lessened by a conviction of its inevitableness. Most 
of all is the knowledge of causes effective with feelings such as 
hypochondria, which cherish illusions and suspicions. Kant became 
master of the hypochondria " which in his early years bordered on 
weariness of life,^^ through the knowledge that it resulted from his 
flat and narrow chest. "The oppression remains" he says,i "for its 
cause lies in my bodily structure. But I have become master of its 
influence upon my thoughts and actions by diverting the attention 
from it, as though it did not concern me at all." Lichtenberg 
relates that during his nervous illness he felt better when he put his 
fingers in his ears, because he then regarded the pathological 
buzzing as artificially produced. 

Once knowledge leads to the conviction of an unalterable system 
of things in which we, with all our desires and cares, are so 
interwoven that its laws are the laws also of our life, then the road 
to resignation is paved. There are men who, instead of being daily 
sensible of "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," abandon 
themselves once for all, with Spinoza and Goethe, to resignation. 
" Such men are convinced of an eternal and necessary order, and try 
to frame conceptions which are invulnerable, and not to be upset 

1 In the little work, Von der Macht des Gemiiths, dnrch den Blossen Vorsatz seiner 
Krankhaften Gef-iihle Meister zu sein ("On the Power of the Mind to master Patho- 
logical Feelings by the Exercise of Mere Resolution"), (Kehrbach's ed.,p. 26). 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 335 

but rather confirmed by the thought of the transitory."^ The 
character of such a resignation may be that of despair, of trust, 
of humour, or of melancholy. 

(c) Through its influence on cognition and feeling, the wiH reacts 
upon itself. Ideas and feelings are the motives of the will, and 
according to the view just given, it is possible for the motives to 
become themselves objects of the will. In this sense will itself 
can be willed. — So it can, too, in the sense that it can be made 
an aim to encourage the power of forming resolutions, of putting 
an end to internal debate and deliberation. — Finally, the willing of 
the will may also mean, to will the firm retention and execution of 
the resolve, not permitting later moods to upset it. This applies 
chiefly to cases where the end selected involves the employment of 
a whole series of means, a variety of single actions ; a is willed, 
and consequently also ^, ^, and d^ and the carrying out of all 
these secondary resolutions will be possible only by the firm 
retention of the main resolution, while the motives which might 
lead in other directions are repressed. 

The will can never be regarded as self-contained or as having 
an absolute beginning. It is impossible to show a point where 
receptivity, passivity, yields wholly to activity, or vice versa. No 
psychological dissecting knife, however sharp and however skilfully 
handled, could light upon a line dividing the attractive power of 
imagination and of feeling from voluntary suggestion. The relation 
of the two sides may vary to infinity, but neither of them can 
wholly vanish. When it is said in Goethe's Fischer^ " Half she 
drew him down and half he sank," the duality is repeated in the 
second term, for to sink is to let oneself sink. Here, then, is 
neither first nor last, but a relation of infinite interaction, between 
action and suffering.^ 

3. Relation of opposition between the will and the other elements 
of consciousness. 

The higher development of volition is possible only through 
the influence of cognition and of feeling. In the course of 
the transition from lower to higher forms of will, there may, 
however, in consequence of a want of harmony between the 
different elements of consciousness, be breaks and gaps. In the 
main the general law of inhibition operates here (II. 4 ^, 6 ^; VII. 
A. 3), since sensations, ideas, and feelings, which are unable to 

1 Ai4.s Meinem Leben, book 16. Spinoza, Eth. v., 20, Schol. (cf. also De Intellectus 
Emendatione^ at the beginning). 
'^ Cf. V. A. 7 ; B. II. VI. C\ 8 ; E. 2. 



336 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

merge with the given motive to action, tend to supplant and 
suppress it. 

When children learn to walk, self-confidence is an important 
help. An action is more easily executed when there is a strong 
conviction that it will succeed. The sanguineness with which all 
conscious life begins, is an expression of the instinct of self- 
preservation, and makes it possible for the action to absorb the 
full attention. All reflection and all doubt is crippling, and in any 
case introduces a period during which the energy is diffused and 
divided. A child may be able to walk fast, when it is not spoken 
to, but will totter and fall, when other impressions distract its 
attention. The will must, from its nature, be always limited. Its 
object is one single, definite thing, and thoughts and feelings 
linked to other things must always have a more or less crippling 
effect. This is why new intuitions, opening up wider spheres and 
horizons, often cause a falling off of energy, so that there comes 
to be an inverse relation between range and strength. If strength 
alone is considered, then instinct and authority appear manifestly 
the first of the forces in determining the will. With direct assur- 
ance they point out the way ; the future almost loses the stamp of 
possibility. Elucidation and reflection, on the other hand, involve 
a constant danger, since they divide and dissipate the interest and 
the energy, and rob the individual of his absolute confidence and his 
refuge within a limited horizon. It becomes a question whether the 
instinctive will can become a reasonable will of equal energy, 
as in the life of feeling it is a question of developing the ideal 
feelings to the degree of strength possessed by the physical. Some 
people hold that the negro has retrograded since his emancipation, 
and from the same cause must be explained much distrust in the 
effect of religious and political freedom. 

This throws a light also on what seems to be a fact, namely, that 
suicide becomes more frequent as civilization advances, as freedom 
and clearness of understanding increase. Instinct and impulse do 
not weigh the value of life, such a weighing takes place only after 
reflection has been roused, and there is no pledge that the result 
will be favourable. The more a life of thought and feeling grows 
up independent of the action of the will, there will also arise a 
relaxation and enervation such as was called in the Middle Ages 
acedia (anzjni rejnisszo, mentis enervatio), by which was understood 
a melancholy making the mind heavy and hindering action. This 
was numbered among the cardinal sins as a contrast to hope, 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 337 

which was reckoned one of the cardinal virtues. In modern times 
this description of feeHng has certainly not become more rare, and 
where opposition is met with, it readily leads to the striking of a 
parley. It arises very naturally in periods of transition, during 
which instinct and authority have lost their commanding influence, 
and no new basis has as yet been found. — As a matter of course, 
the individual temperament plays here a great part. Where it is, 
to begin with, of a passive character with a special disposition to 
the feeling of pain, there is a greater liability to the transition from 
instinct to reflection. Some natures more than others are disposed 
to introspection and self-reflection. Their ideas then pass easily 
from the object of impulse and of interest to the observation of the 
probable effect upon their feeling of the attainment of this object 
{cf, VII. B, I a). For example, instead of finding pleasure in 
working at a definite task, they worry over the question whether 
the solution of the problem would really make them happier. 
Stuart Mill had to pass through a crisis of this kind in his youth, 
and drew the conclusion that '^ those only are happy who have 
their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness. 
.... The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end 
external to it as the purpose of life.^'^ This self-forgetfulness, which 
is a matter of course where instinct predominates, and is easily 
arrived at wherever traditional ideas and types take possession of 
the mind without having their force weakened by doubt or criticism, 
is attained to with more difficulty in periods of transition, when 
everything is tested and subjected to reflection. 

Shakespeare's Hamlet is the celebrated type of such a state of 
transition. In him the poet has described his own thoughts and 
feelings and those of his own age ; but he has set his hero in an 
age when purgatory was believed in, and the blood-feud was a 
duty. Even if this merely results from his preserving the frame- 
work and outlines of the old story, with a change of character in 
the principal figure, still Hamlet, as presented in the tragedy, 
betrays a life of thought and feeling incompatible with the task 
given him. The Amleth of the old legend handed down to us by 
Saxo has no scruples, although he acts carefully enough. He 
carries out each step of his involved plans with firmness, guided 
by the instinct of self-preservation and the impulse of revenge. 
Hamlet has the wisdom and the parts of Amleth but not his 

1 John Stuart Mill, AutohiograJ)hy , p. 142. 



338 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

decision, though he is far more favourably placed for action, as 
he himself allows when he says 

" I have cause and will and strength and means 
To do't." 

What is only suggested in Orestes (by -^schylus and, very 
characteristically, rather more strongly by Euripides), namely, a 
hesitation and wavering of resolution, constitutes Hamlef s whole 
character. Want of energy and incapacity of resolution cannot, 
indeed, be attributed to him ; for he shows presence of mind enough 
on several occasions ; but there is a duality in his nature, a 
disposition to lose himself in reflections and feelings, excited 
indeed by his situation and his task, but leading him far from 
thence, and consuming a portion of the energy, which in Amleth 
and Orestes are immediately available for action. This he says 
himself, 

" Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ; 
And thus the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." 

Hamlet is justly regarded as the representative of the modern 
youth, in so far as it is characteristic of this age for reflection to 
be roused and to be turned with inquiry and criticism to instinct 
and authority. The problem is whether a new decision can be 
acquired in place of that lost. 

It is originally in the proper interest of the will and of action 
that an interval should be established between the first rise of the 
motive and the resolve. In fact, consciousness itself arises only 
when the excitation ceases to set up immediate movement (see 
IV. 4, 6). During the interval the motives may be tried one with 
another, so that the innermost nature of the mind may determine 
the action. This play of possibility may, however, exercise a power, 
alluring or distressing, over the mind, so as to absorb it without 
letting it come to resolution and action. This way madness lies. 
"As long as emotion preserves its original energetic character, it 
but seldom leads to madness, because it exercises the understand- 
ing and the will to the utmost and so keeps them both in the path 
of reasonableness. Passive emotion only, which is reduced to an 
empty longing, vain desire, foolish hope, or cowardly denial, is 
the root of madness." ^ A special variety of the insane temperament 

1 Ideler, Biograj>hieen Geisteskr anker ^ p. 156. 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 339 

(the vacillating or self-tormenting variety) appears in the subjection 
of the simplest actions, in the normal state executed quite 
mechanically, to endless reflection and doubt.^ 

It is therefore needful to turn back from the world of possibilities 
to that circumscribed by circumstances. This limitation and nar- 
rowing calls for a resignation. To will is to bind ourselves to some- 
thing quite definite. Reflection therefore, however many winding 
paths it may strike into, must ultimately lead back to a simple 
starting point given immediately in our own nature ; it is a question 
of grasping something which lies close at hand. Expansion must 
be succeeded by concentration. It has been already said by 
Aristotle " that if a man goes on deliberating for ever he will never 
come to a conclusion '^ — and " we always stop in our inquiry how 
to do a thing, when we have traced back the chain of causes to 
ourselves." 2 If the will is not diseased, it must be possible to find 
such a principle or beginning (ap^^)- The misery of the doubter 
and dreamer is that he never can trace back to himself. ^ 

A discord between the will and the other sides of consciousness 
may equally well arise through the will being developed to an 
undue degree of strength, without preserving the natural interaction 
with thought and feeling, A contrast to Hamlet is found in Don 
Quixote, whose zeal to labour and fight for what is good, and to 
help the suffering, makes him hasten away under the influence of 
the most fantastic ideas, without allowing himself time for their 
closer investigation. He is so eager to come to action that it is 
only on his deathbed that he sees the world as it is. As another 
contrast might be named Lassalle (as described by George Brandes), 
whose force of will found no natural application or full outlet cor- 
responding to its intensity, and so took a form which was over- 
strained and conducive to his ruin. " The malady that killed him 
was too much will."^ Characters such as these are instances of a 
strongly marked volitional temperament, one-sidedly favoured by 
circumstances. 

1 Maudsley, The Pathology of Mind^ P- 3ii- 

2 Eth. Nicom. (Peter's trans., iii., 3, 16). This concentration or return to an active 
starting-point may be effected with a wrench. Thus, Plutarch makes Caesar tear hiniself 
away in anger from deliberation, to confide himself to the future and to cross the Rubicon 
(jaera 0vju,ou rti/o? locnrep a</)el9 eavTou e/c tov A-oytcr/aoO Trpbg to fxeWov, Caesar, ch. 22). 

3 The indulgence in opium produces failure of initiation, cripples the faculty of 
beginning and attempting. De Quincey, Con/esswns of an Opium Eater. " The opium- 
eater loses none of his moral sensibilities or aspirations ; he wishes and longs as earnestly 
as ever to realise what he believes possible and feels to be exacted by duty ; but his 
intellectual apprehension of what is possible infinitely outruns his power, not of execution 
only, but even of power to attempt." 

^ G. Brandes, Ferdinand Lassalle. 

Z 2 



340 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

4. The consciousness of will. 

{a) It has appeared to be characteristic of volition proper as 
compared with instinct, that we know what we will, that we are 
conscious of the end and content of the volition. On the other 
hand, the question still remains how we know the fact that we 
will, or what it actually is that stirs in us when we will something. 

In the phenomena of cognition and of feeling there was no 
reason for propounding a similar question. Sensations, ideas, and 
feelings are clearly evident elements of consciousness, but to 
establish immediately the volitional elements is not so easy. What 
we experience in consciousness when we will, can be reduced 
on closer examination to cognitive and feeling elements. In 
impulse is given a feeling of pleasure or of pain, a certain restless- 
ness induced by faint motor-sensations, as also a more or less distinct 
idea of an end of movement. In resolution, the typical expression 
of will proper, there is the thought of an end selected and of the 
means available to attain it, as also the feeling of pleasure at the 
thought of its realization, and a more or less lively sensation of 
straining and of gathering oneself together. Thus neither in im- 
pulse nor in resolution are any elements presented which would 
not be otherwise given. A special feature of resolution, the most 
distinct form of the will, is the concentration or the bringing to a 
point, which results from our regarding the possible action as our 
own. Before the action is actually executed, it is recognized (per- 
ceived) as a part of our self. We adopt or anticipate the action, 
and that is regarded as a completed act which, looked at from 
outside, appears merely as a possibility. In contrast to the inner 
action expressed in resolution, the numerous changing wishes and 
fancies are presented as mere possibilities. 

{b) But this gives rise to the problem of reality in the province of 
inner experience. What criterion can be given, that a volition has 
really arisen, that an inner action has taken place 1 How is the 
possibility (the wish and the fancy ) to be distinguished from the 
reality (the resolve) } 

Concentration differs from expansion only in degree. Jn every 
lively wish there is also a certain concentration. The wishes are 
to the resolve as the nebulas to the articulate system of the stars, 
but in the former it is not so easy to make sure of the extent 
to which the formation has advanced. If no external action follows 
upon the internal, how can I be certain that I have really willed } 
Here appears the great need for a mental dynometer. — The 



vii] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 341 

resolve appears as the conclusion of an inner debate, but what 
security is there that the debate will not be again renewed and the 
conclusion perhaps " Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought '' ? 
And when this happens, can that resolve be said to be anything 
more than a wish ? 

In practice we rely upon our immediate feeling. We believe that 
Ave can mark immediately in ourselves, that a resolution has been 
taken. We experience a specially active expectation, feel ourselves 
prepared for a certain movement. Men who are constrained by 
their position to make firm and unalterable decisions (as officers 
and judges), acquire in this respect greater assurance than others, 
though, often, indeed, only in the exercise of their calling. — Absolute 
assurance is never to be attained.^ We can attain only to a 
practical faith in ourselves, based upon self-experience and the 
knowledge of our character. In any case, what is obtained is an 
inference and no immediate fact, such as a sensation, a thought, or 
a feeling. 

Although in practice a sharp line is drawn between wishes and 
resolutions, it must, on the other hand, be allowed that it is very 
difficult to acquire a knowledge of self. Nowhere is there so 
much danger of mistake and delusion, as in the question of possi- 
bility versus reality in the province of inner nature. The antici- 
pating and realizing influence of feeling (VI. F, 4.0) is nowhere more 
easily and dangerously manifested than here, where an external 
corrective is lacking. Many people regard themselves as great 
heroes of the will because they have revelled in great resolves, 
although these never acquired the tangible and prosaic form of 
external actions. A constant criticism must therefore be practised 
here, of the same kind as that applied to the facts of external 
nature (see V. D.). The consciousness of the will, of our inner 
reality, is just as little immediate as the consciousness of external 
reality. The mark of reality in the province both of internal and of 
external nature, is the firm connection of experiences. A single 
percept or a single feeling may be the result of illusion. Every 
idea of activity is obtained by inference ; experience gives only 

1 In the masterly psychological analysis, which Dostojewski gives of Raskolnikow's 
resolution to commit the murder, there is shown, indeed, on the one hand, that there was 
one instant in which the thought of the murder appeared to him as more than a phantom 
of the brain ; he saw it in a new, terrible, quite unfamiliar light ; it was as a " blow on the 
head."^ But on the other hand, it is observed as a strange property of all the "fixed " 
resolutions already taken by him respecting the affair, that the more they were "fixed " 
the more terrible and impossible they seemed in his eyes. Even immediately before 
committing the deed, he did not believe in his final resolution. 



342 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vil 

the results of activity. The consciousness of the will therefore is 
never quite immediate and simple. 

An example will make this relation clearer. A woman was 
arrested in a garden, into which she had stolen one evening in 
order to set the house of a rival on fire. She declared before the 
court that before her arrest other thoughts had come into her 
mind. But although she was able to swear with a good conscience 
that she would not have set fire to the house, even if she had not 
been arrested, she still did not venture to swear that she had 
already positively given up her purpose, and resolved to go away 
without executing it.-^ Here appears clearly the difference between 
a conclusion drawn from the complete mental condition with the 
aid of self-knowledge, and the immediate consciousness of what 
takes place at the moment. The one may be trustworthy, even if 
the other is not. 

The ethical view is here entirely in accord with the psycho- 
logical, since it pronounces judgment upon thoughts and wishes 
equally with resolutions and actions. But on the other hand, 
the ethical view proceeds with equal justice on the conviction 
that our innermost nature lies in the will. The difficulty of find- 
ing the will clearly and distinctly in any one single phenomenon 
is attributable to the very fact that the will does not begin at 
one given point, but is active from the beginning of conscious 
life, in all association of ideas and in all movement of feeling. 
In the resolve appears, in a concentrated form, an energy, which 
in a less intensive form is applied in all cognition and in all 
feeling. The psychology of the will embraces therefore properly 
the whole province of consciousness (cf, IV. 7 e). The phenomena 
especially called volitional denote only the extreme points of a 
process which extends over the whole of consciousness. 

5. The will and the unconscious mental life. 

(a) It is true of the will even more than of the other forms of 
mental life, that it cannot be fully understood, so long as we con- 
fine ourselves to the clear daylight of consciousness. Even when 
our resolutions and actions are determined by motives which have 
their rise in our innermost nature, it does not follow that these 
motives always stand out clearly in consciousness. In such cases 
we know, indeed, the fact that we will and what we will, but not 
clearly why we will it. 

1 The case is fully described in Bischoff, Merkwiirdige Krhninal-Rechtsfiille^ i.,, 
PP- 457-474- 



vii] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 343 

Here as everywhere (see IIL) there is a whole scale of inter- 
mediate stages between the unconscious and the conscious. In 
every moment, indeed, one thought, one mood, is in the centre of 
consciousness, while the other thoughts and feelings experienced at 
the moment fade gradually into the unconscious. Whatever is 
determined by the constant thoughts, and springs from the domi- 
nant feeling, is best understood both by ourselves and by others ; 
but it is not necessarily the thing most deeply rooted in our nature 
that is taken as the central point of consciousness in any one 
moment or even in the greater number of moments. The central 
point of individuality does not always coincide with the central 
point of consciousness. When it becomes a question of action, 
therefore, it is not to be wondered at if something happens which 
astonishes both the spectator and the actor. Something may 
emerge that had never previously appeared in the foreground 
of consciousness, and that the individual does not properly re- 
cognize as his own. 

Nature gives us from the first an impetus, for we find ourselves 
already active at the birth of consciousness. Consciousness only gra- 
dually acquires an influence over the activity (whether inward or out- 
ward), and this influence never becomes complete. The spontaneous 
impulse to movement, the reflex movements, and the half-conscious 
movements accompanied by obscure feeling, preserve a certain in- 
dependence, even after conscious thought has nominally taken 
the direction of aflairs. Similarly with involuntary series of ideas 
and with emotions. The unconscious and involuntary plays a 
part, to an extent varying in the individual cases, in all conscious 
volition, and sometimes breaks into open revolt. Under this head 
come, for example, the obscure incentives familiar, no doubt, to 
everybody, to knock down different objects, to interrupt a serious 
speech, or to do other senseless and motiveless things. These 
phenomena have been styled the " antilogy of the will.^^ ^ An im- 
pulse, inexplicable even to ourselves, raises itself against the 
rational will ; it is, as a rule, overcome, but in many cases only 
with a great effort. Such phenomena show the justice of the say- 
ing, that we learn to know our character only from our actions. 
Since our nature, or our character, is more comprehensive than 
the small part of it which consciousness clearly illumines, and 
since, moreover, our actions can never manifest our nature to our- 

1 Spitta, Die Willenshesthnnitingen unci ihr Verhdltnis zu den Impnlsiven Hand- 
hmgen, Tubingen, i88t. 



344 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

selves and others in its fulness and manysidedness, there remains 
always the possibility of new experiences. 

The unconscious tendencies to activity are not noticed so long 
as they tend in the same direction as the conscious thoughts and 
feelings. Their force merges with that of the conscious motives, 
which receive the honour or the shame of the whole action. We 
feel ourselves free and unchecked in our activity. .It is only 
when these tendencies work against the end of conscious endea- 
vour that attention is called to the fact of a something in us, of 
which we are never, or at any rate not at the moment, master. 
The sense of inner division, of a contradiction, is at the same time 
a feeling of constraint. 

Such a feeling of constraint often denotes the transition to a 
higher stage of the life of the will. It is the condition which 
makes it possible for us to pronounce judgment upon our earlier 
volition, for while our will works on with undivided energy there 
is no room for an estimation or a judgment, but we go straight 
ahead. Here is seen the great importance of the interval already 
mentioned. It may conduce to a stoppage, even to a hesitation 
and a discord, in the mind, but it is necessary to higher develop- 
ment. It may lead to the absolute condemnation and rejection of 
the previous bent of the will. Looking back in memory to times 
when contending forces were at work in us, we often take the part 
of the vanquished, and with chagrin and repentance recognize 
that it was the better, the justified part of our self, which suc- 
cumbed. And just as deliberation may lead to our losing ourselves 
in endless reflection, so repentance may lead to a pathological brood- 
ing over what cannot be undone. In repentance, however, there 
works a natural impulse to higher development, aroused, like 
every impulse, through the sense of contrast between the ideal 
and the real. The self-condemnation and self-contempt to which 
repentance may lead, would be unendurable, were not repentance 
itself a token of nobler powers within us. What inflicts the wound, 
therefore, also heals it. The great psychological and ethical im- 
portance of all self-condemnation lies in its being a token of our 
power of extricating ourselves from the previously dominant bent 
of will, just as the patient^s knowledge that he has been ill is a 
token of recovery from insanity. 

{b) So long as we keep to the purely empirical ground of what, 
before and during the action, takes place in and before conscious- 
ness, it is not possible to demonstrate the validity of the causal law 



Vii] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF tHE WILL 345 

in the sphere of the will or of the mental life in general. Here as 
everywhere the causal law is provisionally a mere assumption, 
a postulate, with which each department of research is first 
approached. Where anything at all is understood, it is by our 
finding a causal connection, and if the volitional life is to be under- 
stood, the causal law must consequently be supposed applicable in 
this as in other departments. This view justifies itself, and cannot 
be gainsaid. For even where no explanation, not even a hypo- 
thetical one, can be found, the most natural supposition is that the 
causes lie too deep, or that the conditions under which they operate 
are too complicated, to be penetrated into. This is the conclusion 
drawn in every department of research, when explanation fails ; 
nor can psychological observation lead to any other result. It may 
very possibly present phenomena, the causes of which cannot be 
found ; but from the nature of the case it can never prove that there 
is no cause of that which is to us inexplicable. 

Psychology, like every other science, must be deterministic ; that 
is to say, it must start from the assumption that the causal law 
holds good even in the life of the will, just as this law is assumed 
to be valid for the remaining conscious life and for material 
nature. If there are limits to this assumption, they will coincide 
with the limits to psychology. — Apart from this main consideration, 
it is, however, easy to show the essential importance for psychology 
of maintaining the causal connection in the department of the will, 
(i) Much confusion has arisen through the meaning that has 
been attached to the word motive. If by motive is understood a 
determining force distinct from ourselves, from our nature, it 
becomes easy to prove that those who maintain the will to be 
governed by motives, make it a slave to something external. This 
is to be ourselves the slaves of a habit of speech, which treats the 
motives as working upon us like weights set upon the balance from 
outside. But the motive, the power determining the will, is in 
reality always the individual himself in a definite form or from a 
definite side. Our motives are the definite ideas and feelings, 
without which no definite volition is possible ; — and all volition 
must proceed from something definite, must have a definite content 
or aim. The content or the aim is embraced by the idea, and 
determines the feeling, and what we call volition is the yielding to 
this end or content, an act which — as has been seen — appears in 
one of its simplest forms in the manner in which we prepare for the 
execution of a certain movement (VII. A. 6 a). 



%\6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

The motives are, however, determined, not only by our original 
nature, but also by our own earlier volition and action. The in- 
voluntary and the voluntary stand, as so often set forth, in a 
relation of extraordinarily complex interaction. Our acts of 
will and our actions are important not merely on account of 
their external effects ; they take effect also on our involuntary 
and unconscious life, determining and transforming it. Merely 
the fact that a feeling has once found a vent or discharge in 
a certain way, may be of decisive import for the manner of its 
later expression ; it may have either an inhibitive, a strengthening, 
or a transforming effect. Hence the possibility of a more or less 
conscious (though of course point for point determined) reaction 
upon the motives. The will may, in this way, educate itself 
(cf, Vn. B, 2). How far in any given case the individual can 
reach in this respect, must be brought to the test and can be 
determined only by experiment. Any one in whom neither im- 
pulse nor wish is aroused, will of course not even make the 
attempt. 

(2) Determinism asserts the continuity of development of con- 
sciousness, since it asserts the causal connection in the department 
of the will. Indeterminism, which teaches the existence of cause- 
less acts of will, absolutely destroys the inner connection and the 
inner continuity of conscious life. Between these two conceptions 
a choice must be made ; the causal law must either hold good or 
not hold good, continuity must either be present or not be present. 
And it does not matter whether the breach of causality is great or 
small ; the question is one of principle. A weight suspended by a 
string falls to the ground, whether the string is cut in one place or 
in many. An act of will without a cause would be something 
absolutely foreign, not pertaining to the nature of the self. Here, 
as so often in the foregoing, a psychological conception is met with, 
which to a smaller or less degree, with more or less consistency, 
reduces the conscious life to a series or sum of members, atoms, or 
forces, having nothing to do with one another. In opposition to 
this we have constantly endeavoured to prove that there. is such 
want of causality only where consciousness has either not reached 
its full development, or is on the road to dissolution. So far as the 
will specially is concerned, it need only be remembered that pur- 
pose and resolution are linked with memory, and that consequently 
no rules and laws can be supposed to hold good for memory and 
association of ideas which do not also hold good for the will. 



Vii] THE PSYCHOLOGV OF THE WILL 347 

That the will is closely linked with memory implies further that it 
is linked with the self, with the formal and real unity of conscious- 
ness (V. B. 5). An action without a cause could not proceed from 
a self; the two conceptions, self-determination and freedom from 
the causal law, which are so often thought to mean the same thing, 
really neutralize one another, so soon as a definite meaning is 
given to the word " self/^ 

It accords with this that a clearer understanding may be attained 
of the will, the higher its development. We can understand 
characters that are energetic and consistent, because every ex- 
pression and action is determined by thoughts and feelings which 
stamp the character ; and such strongly-marked characters as a 
rule subscribe themselves to the determinist view (the Stoics, the 
Calvinists, the English philosophers). The cases in which a psycho- 
logical understanding cannot be attained are, as a rule, those in 
which we have before us restless, fermenting characters, the savage 
and the ungovernable ; consequently, phenomena which are the very 
opposite of self-determination and true volition. If anything could 
be found in the psychological province not subject to the causal 
law, it would be above all in the disconnected ideas {Ideen-jagd) 
and in the changing suggestions of lunatics and of idiots. But 
in conscious life such as theirs, it is precisely constraint which 
dominates and not freedom, if the word is used, not in the 
sense of freedom from the causal law, but in the natural sense in 
which it was employed even by Socrates, namely, of the con- 
centration and independence of the will, which cause a man to be, 
in his whole life and action, in harmony with his innermost con- 
viction and his deepest feeling. Freedom in this sense is the end 
to which mental development tends : the contrary, not to necessity, 
but to chance and blindness. 

(3) Indeterminism conflicts, not only with psychology, but also 
with physiology, inasmuch as it enters into irreconcilable contra- 
diction with the principle of conservation of energy in the organic 
province- If a volition without a cause is admitted, then the 
functions of the brain and of the nervous system must be allowed 
to originate without a cause. 

(4) These arguments are so strong, that indeterminism has more 
and more renounced all claim to any theoretical basis and justifica- 
tion, and in the present day appeals mainly to moral grounds. It 
has been perceived that, when indeterminism explains actions, other- 
wise inexplicable, through a will provided for this end and not 



34§ OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vil 

subject to the causal law, this is as purely a veiling" of ignorance, 
as was the appeal to a vital force in the explanation of organic 
phenomena. On the other hand, indeterminism is laid down as a 
necessary presupposition of moral responsibihty and sanity. The 
discussion of this assertion belongs rather to ethics than to 
psychology.^ 

It may here be observed that in the feeling of responsibility and 
in repentance is implied no more than that the individual recognizes 
that he has willed the action, and by virtue of the better mind to 
which he has come condemns himself for having done so. The 
idea that it would have been equally possible to have acted in the 
opposite way, does not make itself felt in all individuals, and 
where manifested must be explained partly as the confusion of a 
metaphysical notion with psychological experience, partly as an 
illusion which is very natural when the individual with his new 
conviction and with the strong desire to have acted otherwise, 
vividly conceives himself at the moment of action, without, how- 
ever, being able to survey and realize all the inner and outer 
conditions in actual operation at the time. 



C. — The Individual Character. 

L All conscious life is individual. Memory and thought, 
pleasure and pain, impulse and resolution, all presuppose a 
common inner centre. It is the task of psychology to set forth 
the elements, forms, and laws, common to all conscious life, but as 
actually presented they appear in infinitely various combinations 
and shades. The general abstract individuality of which psycho- 
logy treats is merely an outline, which in each given case is filled 
up differently. This diversity cannot be exhaustively dealt with by 
general psychology ; it is a matter for experience of life, for art, in 
particular for poetry, and for history. Psychology has only to 
indicate certain typical differences, conditioned by the relation 
between the different mental elements and forms of activity. 

In the first place, it makes an essential difference whether the 
cognitive elements or those of feeling or of will have the upper 
hand in the individual. And further, within each several species of 
dominant element, there may again be one single bent that has most 
weight. Thus in the province of cognition, sensuous perception 

1 See the last chapter of my work, Die Gncndlage der Huvtanen Ethik. 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 349 

and thought are presented as opposites; in sensuous perception 
the different senses {cf, for example, the difference between the 
endowment of the painter and that of the musician), and in thought 
association by similarity and by contiguity. In the province of feel- 
ing the contrast between physical and ideal feelings is of great im- 
portance ; and after that the contrast between pleasure and pain, 
egoism and sympathy. Finally, in respect of the will, there are 
individuals who are principally led by impulse and instinct, while 
others toil wearisomely through a succession of resolutions. There 
are some in whom the will acts mainly as a check, others in whom 
its positively selective and sustaining activity is most prominent. 
And to all these differences may be added in each several depart- 
ment, differences of strength, of rapidity, and of scope. 

From antiquity downwards psychology has laid the greatest 
stress upon the original bents of feeling, which give the keynote to 
the mental life, whatever line it may strike out. Both talent and 
character are determined by the temperament, just as feeling 
occupies a central position in relation to cognition and will. The 
temperament is determined by the organic constitution, and 
manifests itself in the vital feeling, the fundamental mood which 
controls the mind independently of definite external experiences. 
It is one of the most important constituents of the real self 
(V. B. 5), the feeling-regulator of the individual (VI. E. 2). As a 
background given from the beginning, it determines the mode in 
which all experiences are received by the individual, and con- 
sequently the mode in which the individual reacts upon the 
external world. 

Already in antiquity Galen propounded the doctrine of the four 
temperaments, answering to the four elements of Empedocles and 
the four organic fluids of Hippocrates. The physiological theory 
on which the doctrine of the temperaments was originally based has 
been long since abandoned. Now as a rule, with Haller, excita- 
bility is taken as a basis. The differences of temperament depend, 
therefore, upon the varying strength, rapidity, and vividness, with 
which external impressions are received and preserved. Kant 
distinguished as follows between the temperaments in which 
feeling preponderates and active temperaments ; the former are 
light-blooded (sanguine) and thick-blooded (melancholy) tempera- 
ments, while the volitional temperaments are hot-blooded (choleric) 
and cold-blooded (phlegmatic). Quite recently Wundt has utilized 
the relation between the strength and the rapidity of emotion 



350 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

as a basis, and has thus returned in a new way to the old four- 
fold division ; the choleric temperament (strong and quick), the 
melancholy (strong and slow), the sanguine (weak and quick), 
and the phlegmatic (weak and slow).^ However essential the 
point of view here taken may be, inasmuch as excitability or 
power of reacting appears the fundamental property of all life, 
there remains something that does not properly appear in the old 
four-fold division, viz. the tendency to one or other of the two 
great opposites of the life of feeling, which gives colour and 
direction to the whole disposition. To the four ancient tem- 
peraments might be added, therefore, the bright and the dark 
temperament ; and this opposition is more fundamental than that 
upon which the other four temperaments are based, because it has 
its root in the fundamental conditions for the preservation of the 
individual organism. Pleasure and pain correspond, as has been 
seen, in the main to the progress or retrogression of the vital 
process itself (VL D.). Physiologically, the contrast between the 
bright and the dark temperament points, moreover, to the influence 
of the vegetative functions upon the brain, while the other four 
temperaments can be traced back to the greater or lesser ease 
with which external stimuli can set in motion the central nerve- 
organs.^ 

2. The origin of the individual character refers back to the 
origin of the individual organism. We have had in another con- 
nection (VL C. 3) an opportunity of observing how very early the 
germ arises, out of which a new organism is developed. When 
impregnation has taken place and growth begins, the result is at 
every point decided by the relation between the inwardly con- 
ditioned growth and differentiation on the one side and the 
mechanical conditions of development on the other. In the 
individual cases it is extraordinarily difficult to say whether the 
structure of a form is conditioned by inner processes or by the 
influence of " mechanical forces.^' Deformities often arise out of 
a healthily disposed germ, which went wrong in the course of 
development.^ — Even after birth physical conditions (food^ climate, 
etc.) help to determine the result. The stunting of the body, for 

1 Kant, Anthropologies 2nd ed., p. 255, seq. ; Wundt, Physiol. Psychol.^ ii., p. 347, seq. 
(3rd ed. ii. p. 421, seq.).^ 

2 Cf. James Sully, Pessimism : a History and a Criticism^ London, 1877, pp. 405-414. 

3 Kolliker, Entivickelungsgeschichte des Menschen, 2nd ed., p. 385, seq. \ Panum, 
Bidrag til Kundskab om Misfostrenes Fysiologiske Betydning ("Contribution to 
the Knowledge of the Physiological Significance of Abortions"), Copenhagen, 1877, 
p. 70, seq. 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 351 

example, leads also to the stunting of the mind, and statistics 
show the influence of external conditions upon human actions. 
But in respect of every single individual, the force of external 
conditions is always modified by the inner conditions with which 
the individual confronts the external world. Individuality is thus 
always presupposed. 

The same holds good also in respect of social causes. Imitation, 
education, relations to authority play an extraordinarily large part 
in the mental development of every individual. Even Fichte, who 
so one-sidedly and energetically maintained the personality, with 
its capacity of self-determination, to be innate and original, is 
unable to explain evolution from lower to higher stages, without 
supposing external intervention, even if this consist only in the 
touching of a spring. In mental growth it is even more difficult 
than in bodily to keep apart the inner and outer influences. While 
some regard the individuality as given from the first, so that what is 
experienced, exercised and acquired has only a quite secondary 
importance ; some on the other hand (as Helvetius and in modern 
times John Stuart Mill) have referred all differences of mental 
capacities to difference in up-bringing. But this is contradicted 
by the experience that education produces most effect upon 
mediocre natures. That great differences arise, in spite of simi- 
larity of education, shows that at any rate a natural basis always 
plays some part. 

A profounder point of view is afforded by heredity. Individual 
organisms arise by propagation. The germs of the new organisms 
are evolved out of earlier organisms, and, as it now appears that 
they inherit in a greater or smaller degree the nature of these, 
it seems to be a natural view that the individuality owes its 
origin and its properties to the race whence it springs. Pro- 
perties not explicable by physical and social causes, may perhaps 
find their explanation if we go back to the earlier generation. 
What seems inexplicable in the individual may be explicable 
in the race. There is no individual trait on which light may 
not be thrown from some side or other, if the history of the race 
is investigated. Such an investigation is exceedingly difficult 
and complicated, owing to the fact that heredity branches out to 
infinity, and that several generations may be skipped (atavism). ^ 

1 The expression "atavism" was first employed by Duchesne in reference to plants. 
Proper Lucas, Traite Philos. et Physiol, de V Heredite Naturelle, Paris, 1847-50, ii., 
p. 43. Aristotle was already acquainted with the phenomenon, Hist. Anim.^ vii., 6 (ed. 
Bekker, p. 585b) ; De Gener. Anim.^ i., 18, (p. 722a). 



352 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

What has once taken hold in the human organism is not to 
be easily rooted out. Thanks to this interaction between an 
enduring type (which, even when interrupted, may re-emerge 
by means of atavism), — with properties which are implanted by 
crossing, — and properties which are introduced by accommoda- 
tion to new conditions of life, by exercise and suffering, — the 
prospect is afforded of an infinity of different combinations or 
syntheses. 

Heredity in the race has often been compared with the faculty 
of memory in the individual. But even as memory does not retain 
everything that passes in the life of the individual, and conse- 
quently does not explain the whole of it, so too heredity is not any- 
thing more than a natural tendency to retain what has been 
acquired. The scope of this tendency, and its power of vanquish- 
ing new conditions and experiences, is a question presented 
afresh in each individual case. There is always therefore a place 
left for empiricism, which infers the content and the nature of 
consciousness from individual experiences. In the race, as in the 
individual consciousness, there are two currents or tendencies 
{cf, V. B, 2), and these may stand in most varied relations to one 
another. There is indeed a special class of individual differences 
depending on whether the inherited constitution or the personal 
experiences have most to do with forming the character. Thus 
the sanguine and the choleric temperaments can be more strongly 
influenced from without than the melancholy and phlegmatic 
temperaments. 

Without entering here more closely into the theories of heredity, 
we will call attention to one or two general results.^ — i. The more 
deeply anything is taken into the organism, the more easily it is 
transmitted. What is only recently acquired is in unstable equili- 
brium, and is easily annulled by contrary influences. — 2. Physical 
properties are more easily transmitted than mental ; simple, 
straightforward faculties more easily than such as depend upon 
the co-operation of several mental powers. Instincts are inherited 
most easily of all ; after them tendencies of feeling and faculties of 
sense; intellectual capacities last of all. — 3. It is only elementary 
forms and dispositions that are transmitted. What is inherited 
has therefore more or less indeterminateness, and the degree and 

1 Cf. Decandolle, " Sur la part d'Influence de THeredite, de la Variabilite et de la 
Selection dans le Developpement de I'Espece Humaine " (in the work, Histoire des 
Sciences et des Savants depuis deux Siecles, Geneve, Bale, Lyon, 1873, pp. 308- 
402), Ribot, V Heredite Psychologique^ deuxieme ed., Paris, 1882. 



VII] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WILL 353 

direction in which it is developed is a question of individual 
experiences. 

3. The physical, social, and inherited conditions supply the 
elements out of which the structure of individuality is raised. 
Experience shows us no other regions in which to look for 
stones for the structure. Only by some mystical roundabout 
way could the interminable inquiries be escaped, which are 
consequently necessary to explain any individuality. Some 
have regarded the individuality as absolutely original ; as an 
^' original state,^^ or as an eternal '' monad.^^ With such an as- 
sumption as a basis, the problem of the origin of individuality 
is of course wholly done away with, but such an assumption is 
arbitrary and unscientific. It may, indeed, be said, that there is in 
nature a law of individuality, inasmuch as all evolution has the 
character of differentiation, leads to the formation of differences 
and individual peculiarities ; but the problem of research is pre- 
cisely to discover the elements out of which these totalities are 
formed and the laws according to which they arise. Research 
may and must admit that, as regards the individuals, it does not 
succeed in giving every detail, that there is always something 
which escapes it, — that the individuality appears in consequence 
an irrational whole, which admits of only approximate determi- 
nation. But it is of decisive importance, in this as in all pro- 
vinces, to protect empirical research from mystical and speculative 
interference. 

From a purely psychological standpoint it is necessary to go a 
step further. Even though the individual organism, which in spite 
of its completeness and relative independence is still a republic of 
cells, were to be explained as compounded out of elements, and its 
origin made intelligible through the law of the persistence of energy, 
this would not explain the individual consciousness, the formation 
of a special centre of memory, of action, and of suffering. That it 
is possible for such an inner centre to come into being is the fun- 
damental problem of all our knowledge. Each individual trait, 
each individual property, might perhaps be explained by the power 
of heredity and the influence of experience ; but the inner unity, 
to which all elements refer, and by virtue of which the individuality 
is a psychical individuality, remains for us an eternal riddle. As 
was observed in an earlier connection, it is impossible to apply to 
the mental province anything analogous to the persistence of 

A A 



354 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

energy. Psychical individuality is one of the practical limits of 
science. 

In recent times the attempt has been made to explain by 
heredity, not only the properties of the individuals and of the 
family and race, but also the forms and characteristics which apply 
to all consciousness. Even before Darwin's hypothesis of the 
origin of species, Herbert Spencer (in the first edition of the 
Principles of Psychology^ 1^55) propounded the theory, that the 
fundamental forms and powers of consciousness had been de- 
veloped through the adaptation of the ancestral races to their 
conditions of life. The forms of thought and feeling which are 
typical of the human race, would therefore be a priori in respect 
of the individual, that is to say, they could not be fully explained 
by the individual experiences, but these experiences would, on the 
contrary, be conditioned by an original substratum. On the other 
hand, those forms would find their explanation if account were 
taken of the whole race, and of the infinite series of experiences 
the race must have gone through in the course of its development. 
What would be a priori to the individual, would to the race there- 
fore be a posteriori. 

This hypothesis is an attempt to lead the dispute between 
apriorism and empiricism into a new channel, and in so doing 
to allow due weight to each. Apriorism carries the day with 
reference to the individual, while empiricism holds good for the 
race. The earlier treatment of this problem {cf, the conflict 
between Locke and Leibniz, Hume and Kant, John Stuart Mill 
and Whewell) took into consideration only the individual conscious- 
ness. Spencer has yielded up one of the most prominent positions 
of empiricism in order the more energetically to defend a more 
retired position, the possession of which was denied to the older 
empiricism by the narrowness of its own standpoint. 

This attempt at a solution, however, suggests doubts of two kinds. 

In the first place, the race is a collective conception. At any 
given time it is composed of a certain number of individuals. 
These individuals carry on the struggle for existence, exercise their 
powers, and, by accommodation to the conditions of life, acquire a 
certain organization which may be transmitted to the next genera- 
tion. But however far back we go, the individuals still start always 
with a certain organization, with certain forms and powers which 
they have not themselves acquired, consequently with something a 



VII] . THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WH.L 355 

priori. At every stage of the great process of evolution there is a 
given basis, by which the effect of all experiences is determined. It 
must therefore be true of the race as of the individual, that the ex- 
ternal always presupposes ^the internal, that what is acquired is 
conditioned by what is originally innate. This is a fundamental 
relation that constantly repeats itself. 

Spencer's theory recalls Plato's mystical doctrine of knowledge 
as a reminiscence of a pre-existing state. -^ There is, indeed, the 
great difference that, while Plato explained everything in conscious- 
ness which could not be derived from personal experience, as 
acquired in a spiritual pre-existence, in which the soul in the com- 
pany of the gods contemplated the eternal ideas, — according to 
Spencer, the basis of our mental life is formed by the work, the 
sufferings and struggles of millions of human beings. Both Plato 
and Spencer overlook, however, that we have here to do with a 
question of principle, and that, if existence involves an a priori^ 
this is also involved in any kind oi pre-existence ^ whether we con- 
ceive it realistically or mystically. An absolute beginning or 
end cannot, from the nature of our knowledge, be reached. The 
fundamental relation between a something internal and a some- 
thing external, which is the general law of life and consequently 
also of mental life, is only a special case of the general law of 
relativity. From one single principle, one single assumption, no 
result, as has been already shown (V, D, 5), can be gained. 

In the second place, a definite separation must be made between 
psychological and epistemological points of view. Psychologically, 
the evolution hypothesis is a great advance ; it opens up a wider 
horizon, a prospect of explanation previously closed to us. Psycho- 
logically, as physiologically, the doctrine that that which is inex- 
plicable in the individual may be explicable in the race, is fully 
justified, and will certainly prove more and more a fruitful princi- 
ple. But from the point of view of the theory of knowledge, it is 
a different affair. The final principles which the analysis of our 
knowledge affords, are the final assumptions attainable for us. 
All explanations, proofs and hypothesis, consequently also the 
evolution hypothesis itself, rest upon these. It is the business of 
epistemology, but not of psychology, to inquire how far this logical 
basis of all our knowledge is comprehensive. Psychology is a 

3 Cf. my paper on Plato's psychology, in Tidsskrift for Filologi ("Magazine of 
Philology"), Copenhagen, 1876, p. 209, seq. 

A A 3 



356 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY [vii 

special discipline, which presupposes the general principles of our 
knowledge, but cannot explain their validity. The unassailable 
standpoint of idealism is given in the necessity of thought, which 
lies at the bottom of every admissible realistic hypothesis. How- 
ever far it may be possible to explain man through the world, 
the world in its turn is always explained through man ; for we 
can go no farther back than that which is to man a necessity of 
thought. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abstraction, 165—173 
Acedia, 336 

Activity and passivity, 48, seq. ; 98, seq. \ 
119, seq. ; 160, 173, seq. ; 281, seq. ; 300, 
^eq. ; 325, 335 

iEschylus, 338 

iEstlietiC feeling, 264, seq. 

After-image, 144 

Agraphia, 147, 313 

Alcni890ii, 53 

Anger, 234 

Aristotle, founder of empirical psycho- 
logy ,_ 26, seq. ; psychological bipartite 
division, 88, seq. ; development of higher 
mental forms out of lower, 90 ; on s^'^m- 
pathy for those on whom we have con- 
ferred benefits, 245 ; on the seat of feel- 
ing, 268 ; on the biological importance of 
feeling, 272 ; distinction between squib 
and comedy. 295 ; close of deliberation, 
339 ; atavism, 351 ^ 

Art, origin of, 264 ; direct and associative 
factor in artistic effect, 265 ; artistic and 
natural beauty, 266 *, artistic imagina- 
tion, 180, seq. 

Association of ideas, laws of, 149—160 
Associationist-psychology, 49, 95, 157, 

177. 

Atavism, 351 
•^^Attention, 95 ; involuntary attention, 119, 
j(?^., 314; voluntary attention, 315; at- 
tention and association of ideas, 160, 299 

Aversion, 234 ""^ 



cells in the cerebral cortex, 40 ; spon- 
taneous movement, 118, 131, 310, seq. ; 
apprehension of space, 193, 199; feelings 
of relativity, 279 ; neutral feelings, 287 

Bell (Charles), the brain as seat of feeling, 
268 

Beneke, on the unconscious, 73 ; on the 
expansion of feeling, 303 

Bernard (Claude), on the effect of curare, 
II ; the blood as iniiieu interieur., 34 ; 
on the physiological standpoint, 35 ; on 
sensibility as faculty of organic matter, 

83 
Bernouilli, 276 
Bichat, on the seat of the feelings, 268 ; 

on the influence of repetition, 281 
Blind persons, 108, 123, 195, 197, 205 
Bonnet, on hallucinations, 144 ; on the 

will, 314 
Bouillier, on satisfaction in sorrow, 258 
Braid, on monoideism as condition of 

hypnotism, 45 
Brain : brain-physiology, 38, seq. ; brain 

and consciousness, 50, seq. ; 267, seq. \ 

312, seq. 
Brandes (George), on the character of 

Lassalle, 339 
Broca, on the organ of speech, 41 
Brochner, on the unconscious, 75 
Broussais, 15, 61 
Burdactl, on the psychical relation of the 

impression, 80 
Burke, on the sublime, 290 



B 



Bacon (Francis), on knowledge and power, 

214 
Baer (K. E. v.). on growth and generation, 

Bain (Alexander), the number of nerve- 



CabaniS, on the psychological Importance 
of the foetus-life, 3 ; on matter, 61 ; on 
genius in the years of puberty, 254 

Calderon, life^a dream, 219 

Campanella, 333 

Cardanus, relativity of feeling, 275 ; pain 
a condition of pleasure, 285 



36o 



INDEX 



Carpenter, on unconscious cerebration, 
8i ; on expectant attention, 304 ; physio- 
logy of attention, 316 

Causal concept, its application presup- 
poses succession, 56, seq. \ its epistemo- 
logical basis, 208 ; its psychological de- 
velopment, 213, seq. ; 301, seq. ; its appli- 
cation to the life of the will, 344, seq. 

Cellini, illusion on the basis of an hallu- 
cination, 145 

Choice, elementarj^ 121, 160 ; conscious 
choice, 328 

Cliflford, on animation in general, 82 

Cognition, psychology of, loi — 220 ; cog- 
nition and feeling, 94 — 98, 161, 221, seq. ', 
233} seq. ; 298, seq, ; cognition and will, 
95, 119, seq. ; 160, 330, seq. 

Colour, sensations of, 103. seq ; 108, 112, 
seq. ; their effects on feelings, 230, seq. 

Complex ideas (individual ideas), 164 

Concept, 175, seq. 

Condillac, on attention, 120, seq. 

Conscience, 260, 277, 301 

Consciousness : preliminary account, 45, 
seq. ; consciousness and cerebral activity, 
50, seq. ; consciousness and unconscious- 
ness, 71, seq. ; element of consciousness, 
88 ; centre of consciousness and centre 
of individuality, 343 

Contrast, effect of, in the province of sen- 
sations, 112, seq.\ between fresh and 
repeated sensations, 121 ; between sensa- 
tions, 161 ; between feelings, 275, seq. ; 
260, 301 



D 



Darwin (Charles), on the capacity of pro- 
ducing sounds, 156 ; expressions of anger 
in young children. 234 ; egoism of the 
male, 249; the courtship of animals, 251 ; 
development of sympathy, 252 ; smiling 
in young children, 291 ; smiling and 
laughter in monkeys, 292 ; the phy- 
siognomy when lost in thought, 316 

Darwin (Erasmus), on the_ psychological 
importance of the foetus-life, 3 

Deliberation, 328 _ 

Descartes, conception of the mind, 9 ; on 
the relation between mind and body, 58, 
seq. ; on the apprehension of distance, 
194 ; the seat of feeling, 268 ; wonder as 
the forerunner of all feelings, 279 

Desire, 235, seq. ; 323 

Determinism, 344, seq. 

Differentiation, 85, seq. ; 90, 169, seq. ; 
232, seq. 

Disinterested feeling, 257, seq. 

Distance, apprehension of, 192, seq. ; c/. 
164, seq. 

Double consciousness, 140 

Dostojewski, psychology of crime, 300 ; 
consciousness of the will, 341 

Dream and reality, 206, seq. ; 217, seq. 



Dream-images, 145 

Dreaming, state of, 78, seq. 

Dualistic hypothesis, as to the relation 

between mind and body, 55, seq. ; cf. 

5, seq. ; 58, seq. 
Dul)OiS-Reymond, on the phenomena of 

consciousness and the causal law, 83 ; the 

principal law of the physiology of the 

nervous system, 106 
Duty, feeling of, 260 



Effort, sensation of, 225 ^ seq. 

Egoism, feeling of, 242, seq. 

Element of consciousness, 88 ; conscious 

element and material element (atom), 66, 

141, seq. 
Elementary choice, 121 
Elementary feelings, 221, seq. ; 232 
Elementary memory and comparison. 116 
Elementary sensations, 105 
Emotion, 282, seq. 
Energy, conservation of, 31 ; consequences 

as regards the relation between mind and 

body, 55, seq.; the conservation of energy 

and the principle of individuality, 66, 

86 ; the conservation of energy and in- 

determinism, 347 
Epistemology, 15, 27, 61, 214, 21&, 355 
Eschricht, on the psychology of idiots, 

291, 321 
Ethics and psychology, 27, seq. ; 221, 284, 

348 
Ethical feeling, 259 
Euripides, sentimentality, 258 ; character 

of Orestes, 338 
Evolution, hypothesis of, see Spencer 
Expansion of feeling, 303 ; concentration 

and expansion (differentiation) of mental 

life, 91, seq. 
Expectation, 131, seq. ; 292, 304 



Fear, 226, 228, 237 

Fechner, formula for the increase of sen- 
sations, 22, seq.\ no; on the relation 
between mind and body, 69 ; after-image 
of an unconscious excitation, 76 ; asser- 
tion of absolute sensations, 115 ; memory- 
after-images, 147 ; direct and associative 
factor in aesthetic effect, 265 ; biological 
significance of feeling, 272 ; sensations in 
attention, 315, seq. 

Feeling, unconscious growth, 77 ; indepen- 
dence of the other sides of consciousness, 
89, 222, seq. ; 239, seq. \ feeling and cog- 
nition, 95 — 98, 160, 221, seq. ; 233, seq. ; 
298, seq. ; feeling and will, 98,^ 235, 301, 
330, seq. ; physiology and biology of 
feeling, 267, seq. \ slowness of feeling as 



INDEX 



361 



compared with cognition, 223, 237, 240, 
245, 298, 302, seq. 
Feiltoerg (Ludwig), on emotional eflect, 

303 

FeuerlDacll (Anselm von), capacity of pas- 
sion to excite emotions of another kind, 
283 ; on the blinding force of passion, 
300 

Fichte (J. G.)) subjective idealism, 218 ; 
connection between ethical and religious 
feeling, 263; spontaneous movement, 
310 ; individuality and external in- 
fluences, 351 

Flourens, polemic against localization in 
the brain, 40, seq. ; instinct correlated 
with the cerebrum. 312 

Freedom (of the will), 342, seq. 

Free ideas, 126 

Function, 60 



Gall, theory of localization, 40 ; seat of 

feeling in the brain, 268 
Galton, sight and visual memory, 147 ; on 

generic images, 168 

General feeling, (vital feeling), 4, 77, 98; 
139, 225, 285, 291, 299, 349 

General ideas, t66, seq. 

General sensation, 4, 139, 225 

Genetic theory of the perception of space, 
202 

George Sand, transition from instinct to 
ideal feeling, 251 

Goethe, concept of function, 60 ; on 
primary colours, 103 ; hallucinations, 
145 ; Phantasy, 103, 183 ; effect of colours 
upon feelings, 229 ; " Der Schafer," 254 ; 
" Das Bliimlein Wunderschon," 254 ; on 
the effect of repetition upon feeling, 282 ; 
expansion of feeling, 303; "Der Zau- 
berlehrling," 330 ; resignation, 334 ; 
" Der Fischer," 335 

Goldschmidt (M.), 306, 331 

GoltZ, on localisation in the brain, 41, 312, 
seq. 

Griesinger, dissolution of consciousness 
through insanity, 46 ; on sensations ac- 
companying brain activity, 53 ; on psy- 
chical reflex movement, 58 

GuiSlain, on insanity in its. first stage, 306 



H 



Hallucinations, 144 seq.^ 207 

Hamilton (Sir William), inverse^ relation 
between sensation and perception, 129 ; 
fundamental law of association of ideas, 
158 ; relativity of cognition, 217 ; con- 
sciousness as one with cognition, 239 ; on 
the attractiveness of deep sorrow, 258 

Hartley (David), on psychical chemistry, 



163 ; psychological evolution from egoism 
^ to sympathy, 244 
Hatred, 235 ; disinterested hatred, 252, 

seq. 
Hearing, sensations of, 104, 107, 114, 228, 

Hecker, physiological explanation of 
laughter, 29 r 

Helmholtz, unconscious judgments, 74 ; 
compound character of sensations of hear- 
ing, 104, seq. ; sensation and perception, 
123 ; on the apprehension of space, 193 

Herbart, attempt at a mathematical psy- 
chology, 22 ; atomistic theory of mind, 
49, 142, 144 

Heredity, 35 ij^^-^., cf., 26, 106, 203, 252 

Hering, on primary colours, 103; " Natl- 
vistic" theory of the apprehension of 
space, 201 

Hobbes, law of psychological relativity, 
45? 275 ; influence of feeling on the asso- 
ciations of ideas, 161 ; laughter as ex- 
pression of sense of power, 293, 298 

Holbach, 15, 61 

Homer, materialism, 9 ; description of 
melancholy, 238 ; blinding of passion and 
repentance, 260 

Hope, as original sanguine disposition, 133 ; 
as a species of vital feeling. 226 ; as effect 
of sensuous excitations, 228 ; as deter- 
mined by ideas, 237 

Hornemann (E.), on the death struggle, 
II 

HorwiCZ (Adolt), consciousness begins as 
mere feeling, 96 ; against the notion of 
neutral feelings, 288 

Hume, consciousness as mere succession, 
47 ; criticism of the causal concept, 209 
seq. ; on the association of feelings, 241 
feeling overcome only by feeling, 284 
expansion of feeling, 303 

Humour, 295, 298, 335 

Hunger, 226, seq. 

Hypnotism, 45 



Idealism, eplstemologlcal idealism (sub- 
jectivism), 61, 68, 217, 356; artistic 
idealism, 182, seq. \ idealism of feeling, 
262 

Idealization, 183 

Ideation, 121— 184; ideation and percep- 
tion, 129, seq. ; 145 ; ideation and feeling, 
160, 233, seq. ; 301, seq, ; ideation and 
will, 315, seq. \ -^-z-L, seq. ; 331, seq. 

Ilentity, principle of, in logic, 175, 177 ; 
principle of identity and the causal 
principle, 211 

Identity-hypothesis of the relation be- 
tween mind and body, 64, seq. 

Idiots, smiling and laughter, 291 ; late 
control of the senses and of the limbs, 321 

Illusions, 145 



362 



INDEX 



Imagination (see also under Mevioryi)^ 
1355 1785 seq. ; importance of, for sym- 
pathy, 255, seq. ; for the will, 346, seq. 

Impulse and instinct, 92 ; impulse and 
feeling, 235, seq. \ impulse and will, 312, 
322, seq. 

Indeterminism, 346, seq. 

Individuality, as fundamental form of 
mental existence, 66 ; law of individuality 
in nature, 86, 353 ; limited energy of each 
individual, 93, 99, 233, 240, 336 ; centre 
of individuality and centre of conscious- 
ness, 343 ; typical individual differences, 
348, seq. ; origin of individuality, 48, 246, 
321 

Individual ideas, 164 

Inhibition, 43, 52, 93, 312, 335 

Instinct, its relation to reflex movement 
and_ to impulse, 91, 235, seq.., 312, 322, ; 
instinct of self-preservation, 243 : sym- 
pathetic instincts, 248 ; instinct and feel- 
ing, 248, 251 ; instinct and reflection, 319 ; 
instinctive movements in children, 320 

Intellectual feeling, 263 

Interval between stimulation and re- 
action, 92, 326 

Irritability, 34, 309, 350 



J. 



James (W.), on different ideas, 169 ; feel- 
ing as a species of sensation, 271 

Joy, 235 

Judgment, 175, seq. 
JustiCQ, feeling of, 259 



K 



Kant (Immanuel), consciousness as syn- 
thesis, 48 ; critique of the metaphysical 
psychology, 16 ; identity hypothesis, 69 
psychological tripartite division, 89 
matter and form in cognition, 117 
inverse relation of sensation and percep- 
tion, 129 ; importance of memory for 
perception, 130 ; the causal concept, 212 ; 
cognition as the essence of consciousness, 
239 ; the feeling of duty, 260 *, connection 
between ethical and religious feeling, 
263 ; passion and emotion, 282 ; pain as 
a condition of pleasure, 285 ; feeling of the 
sublime, 289, 290 ; the ridiculous, 296 ; 
struggle against hypochondria, 334 ; 
doctrine of temperament, 350 
Kierkegaard (S.), on repetition, 280 
Kussmaul, on the mental life of infants, 4 ; 
physiology of speech, 42 ; word-deafness 
and \vord-blindness, 125 ; forgetting of 
words, 148, seq. ; loss of power of speech 
without loss of intelligence, 171 



Lange (Albert), on the conception of 
simultaneous presentation, 191 

Lange (Carl), on latent innervation, 226 

Language, expression for mental phe- 
nomena, 2 ; physiology of language, 42 ; 
origin of language, 156 ; language and 
ideas, 170 — 173 

Laplace, 276 

Larochefoucauld, supremacy of egoism, 
244 

Latent innervation, 226 

Laughter, as a purely physiological 
phenomenon, 290, seq. 

Laycock, eff'ect of narcotics, 36 ; reflex 
action of the brain, 58 ; nightmare, 226 ; 
laughter consequent on a swelling in the 
brain, 291 

Lehmann (A.), on the effect of colour on 
feeling, 230 

Leibniz, on verbal expressions for mental 
phenomena, 2 ; unconscious growth in 
mental life, 78 ; the unconscious as 
potential consciousness, 81, seq. ; on the 
criterion of reality, 220 

Leopardi, 284 

Lessing, 295 

Lichtenberg, 303, 307, 333, 334 

Llttre, on a case of '" automne'sie affective," 
242 

Local signs, 200, seq. 

Locke, on verbal expressions for mental 
phenomena, 2 ; on association of ideas, 
157 ; on abstract ideas, 166 

Logic and Psychology, 27, 173, seq. 

Lotze, on substance, 13 ; on nervous 
activity, 36 ; on the relation between 
mind and body, 63, seq. ; on local signs, 
200, seq. ; on the biological significance 
of mental life, 273; on the influence of 
the vital feeling on the production of 
ideas, 299 

Love, in the most general sense, 235 ; love 
as sympathy, 247, seq. ; the feeling of 
love, 250 



M 



Madvig, language denotes the non-spatial 
by the spatial, 3 ; on the origin of 
language, 156 

Maimon (S.)? pure sensations a mere 
abstraction, 117 ; criticism of Kant's 
causal theory, 212 

Marshall Hall, theory of reflex move- 
ments, 58 

Materialism, 15, 59, seq. 

Maternal feeling, 248 

Mechanical explanation of nature, 10, 

30, seq.., 216, 302 

Melancholy, 238, 240 



INDEX 



363 



Memory, a fundamental mental phenom- 
enon, 47 ; memory not always a proof of 
conscious apprehension, 77 ; elementary 
memory, 116; implicate memory, 124; 
free memory, 126, seg'. ; remembrance 
and obliviscence, 142, seg'., 161, seq. ; 
vivacity of memory-images, 146 ; con- 
ditions of preservation and rise of 
memory-images, 147, seg. ; consciousness 
of things remembered as reproductions 
of past experience, 133 ; remembrance of 
feelings, 241, seg. ; remembrance and the 
will, 327, 346 
Memory-after-images, 147 
Metaphors, 153 

Metaphysics and Psychology, 14—16, 
62, seg., 67, seg. 
■ Mill (James), 157, 161, 244 
Mill (John Stuart), consciousness as a 
series of states, 47, cf.,^ 137 : unconscious 
cerebration, 81 ; logical theory, 177 ; 
subjective idealism, 218 ; psychological 
development of sympathy, 244; import- 
ance of education, 351 
Mind, notion of the, i, 6, 12 ; metaphysical 
doctrine of the mind, 12, seg. \ mind and 
body, 29 — 70 ; extent of the mental life, 

71-85 
Mixed feelings, 236—239, 290 

Modality (of sensation), 106 

Monism (in the narrower sense), see 

Identity- hypothesis 
Monistic hjrpotheses, 59, seq. 
Monoideism, 45 
Motive, 324, 335, 345, seq. 
Motor-ideas, 147, 172, 317, seq. 
Motor-sensations, 118, 225, seq., 227, 317, 
Movement and sensuous perception, 118 ; 

different kinds of movement, 308, seq. 
Miiller (Joh.), on the sensation of effort, 

119 ; on spontaneous movement, 310 
Miiller (Max), on verbal expressions for 

mental phenomena, 2 ; on radical and 

poetical metaphors, 153, seq. ', stages in 

the development of language, 163 
Munk, on localization in the brain, 41, 

268, 313 ; mental blindness and mental 

deafness, 125 
Music, 265, 305, seq. 
Mythological Conception of the Mind, 

7, seq. ; mythological causal concept, 



215 



N 



NahlOWSky, on sensation and feeling, 221 ; 

the analogy of sensations, 306 
Nativism, 194, 198, 201, seq. 
Nature, feeling for the beauty of, 266 
Necessity, 208, 302 
Nerve-process, 36, seq. : 82, 271, seq. 
Nervous system, 37, seq. 
Neutral feelings, 287 
Nightmare, 226 



Obliviscence, 141, seq. ; 161. seq. 
Organic life, 33, seq. 

Orsted (H. C), on^the aesthetic effects of 
colour, 229 



Panum, physiology as organic physics, 10, 
35, seq. ; differences in the capacity of 
organic beings to feel pain, 11 ; on the 
organic basis of the apprehension of 
space, 204 ; on the relation between 
physical and physiological observation 
of colours, 232 

Parallelism between the functions of the 
nervous system and the activity of con- 
sciousness, 50, seq. 

Passion, as distinct from emotion, 282, seq. 

Paternal love, 249 

Perception, 18, 124, seq. ; 129, seq. ; 318 

Personal equation, 18 

Pflliger, on the power of animal organism 
to form organic substances, 35 ; on the 
irritability of organic tissue, 309 

Physiology, standpoint and method, 9. 
seq ; 33, seq. \ 57, seq. \ physiology and 
psychology, 24, seq. ; 69, 83, seq. ; phy- 
siology of cognition, 40, seq. ; 50, seq. ; 
125; physiology of feeling, 267, seq.\ 
physiology of laughter, 291 ; physiology 
of volition, 311, seq. 

Physiological time, 51, 94 

Platner, on a blind person's idea of space, 

197 

Plato, mind and body, 9 ; seat of thought 
in the head, 53 ; the '" parts " of the mind 
87, 267, seq. ; higher and lower forms 
of mental life, 90 ; mixed feeling, 238 ; 
self-preservation and propagation, 247 ; 
Eros, 250 ; passion as false knowlege, 
284 ; doctrine of pre-existence, 355 

Preyer, the unity of the Ego not original, 
138 ; on the memory of the experiences 
of childhood, 149 ; a child's judgments, 
176 ; pain predominant in early child- 
hood, 286 ; laughter of a child, 291 ; 
first movements in the embr^'o, 310 

Psychology, provisional description, i ; 
ultimate sources, 11 ; experiential psy- 
chology and metaphysics, 11 — 16; me- 
thod. 16, seq. ; experimental psychology, 
21 ; subjective and objective psychology, 
24 ; ps^xhology and physiology, 24, seq.; 
6g, 83, seq. ; psychology and logic, 27, 
173, seq. ; psychology and ethics, 27, seq. ', 
221, 284, 348 ; psychology and episte- 
mology, 19, 27, 61, 214, 216, 355 
PsychophysiCS (experimental psychology), 
21 

Purpose, 328 



364 



INDEX 



Quincey, De, emergence of forgotten 
memories, 143; the swelling of time, 189 ; 
lost power of coming to a decision, 339 



Realism as artistic tendency, 182, seq. ; as 
contrast to epistemological idealism, 355 

Reality, criterion of, in the province of ex- 
ternal experience, 206, seq. ; cf. 130, seq. ; 
in the province of will, 340, seq. 

Reflex movement, 37, seq. ; 57, 91, 310, 

seq. 

Relativity, law of, in the province of sen- 
sation. 114, seq. ; in the province of re- 
presentations and concepts, 216, seq. \ in 
the province of feeling, 275, seq. \ in the 
province of volition, 314, 329 

Religious feeling, 261, seq. 

Repentance, 244, 260, 344, 348 

Repetition, as condition of conscious life, 
121, seq, ; its importance for thought, 
176, seq. \ 213 ; its influence on feeling, 
279, seq. 

Resignation, 334 

Resolve, 328, seq. 

Reverence, 261 

Richet, memory as condition of pain, 96, 
224 ; pain is intermittent, 278 

Ridiculous, the feeling of the, 290—297 

Rousseau, independence and importance 
of feeling, 88, seq. ; 96 ; the feeling for 
the beauty of nature, 267; polemic 
against Moliere, 295 



Schiller, "Der Tanz," 154; pleasure and 
love, 251 ; origin of art, 265 

Schiodte (J. C), 183 

Schneider (G. H.), on manifestations of 
consciousness in the lowest animals, 97 ; 
on successive and simultaneous contrast, 
115 

Schopenhauer, "derWille zum Leben," 
93 ; on the sexual instinct, 251 ; negative 
character of pleasure, 284 

Self and Not-Self, 3—6, 223, seq. ; psycho- 
logical conception of the self, 136, seq. 

Sensation, loi — 121 ; sensation and per- 
ception, 121, seq. ; sensation and feeling, 
221 — 233 ; analogy of sensations, 306 

Sexual selection, 251, 264 

Shaftesbury, 251 

Shakspeare, King Lear, 109, 155 ; Othello, 
237 ; Hamlet, 238, 337 ; Richard III., 
252 ; Macbeth, 300 ; Shakspeare's hum- 
our, 297^ 

Sibhern, identity-hypothesis, 69 ; evolu- 
tion takes place sporadically, 85 ; feeling 
and will in relation to cognition, 98 ; on 



sensation and perception, 125 ; associa- 
tion between the whole and the parts, 
154 ; mixed feelings, 238 
Single element of consciousness, 137 
Smith (Adam), birds' instinctive know- 
ledge of surroundings, 194 ; an impulse 
of imitation the basis of sympathy, 246 
Space, apprehension of, •190 — 205 ; absolute 

space and psychological space, 205 
Speculative philosophy, see Metaphysics 
Spencer (Herbert), on the mythological 
conception of the mind, 7, seq. ; laws of 
evolution common to mind and matter, 
85 ; explanation of the modalities of sense 
by the evolution-hypothesis, 106 ; rhythm 
of movement, 122 ; the inverse relation of 
sensation and perception, 129 ; the appre- 
hension of space explained by the evolu- 
tion-hypothesis, 203; sympathy explained 
by the evolution-hypothesis, 250, 252 ; 
on pleasure in sorrow, 258 ; play as the 
germ of art, 265 ; biology of feeling ex- 
plained by the evolution-hypothesis, 
274 ; rhythm of the expressions of emo- 
tion, 278 ; the ridiculous, 296 ; expansion 
of feeling, 303 ; hypothesis as to the 
evolution of conscious life, 354 
Spinoza, notion of substance, 13, 85 \ on 
association of feelings, 239 ; psychological 
development of sympathy, 244 ; disin- 
terested malice, 252 ; disinterested love, 
259 ; the law of relativity in the province 
of feeling, 275, 278 ; feeling can be sup- 
pressed only by feeling, 284 ; dependence 
of the will on memory, 327 ; resignation, 

334 .... 

Spiritualism, 12, seq. ; dualistic spiritual- 
ism, 55, seq. ; monistic spiritualism, 62, 
seq. 

Spontaneous movement, 118, 131, 309, 

seq. 

Stael (Madame de), on^ improvization, 
181 ; on expansion of feeling, 303 

Stumpf, polemic against the law of rela- 
tivity, 116 ; nativist theory of the appre- 
hension of space, 198, 201, 204 

Subject and Object, 217 

Subjectivity, theory of, 219 

Sublime, the feeling of the, 288, seq. ; 297 

Successive apprehension clearer than sim- 
ultaneous, 114, seq. ; 163, 199, 237, seq. ; 
290 

Sympathy, 235, 244, seq. 

Tegner (E.), want of verbal expressions for 
certain ideas, 172 

Teleology, 302 

Temperament, 349 

Thirst, 226, seq. 

Thought, elementary thought in all sensa- 
tion, 116 ; thought in all perception, 130; 
in all association of ideas, 159 ; on thought 



INDEX 



36S 



proper in relation to the involuntary flow 

of ideas, 173, seq. 
Time, apprehension of, 184 — 190 
Tocqueville, 325 

Tone, sensations of, see Hearing 
Totality, law of, 159 
Typical Individual idea, 165 



U 



Unconscious mental activity, 71, seq. ; the 
unconscious as potential consciousness, 81, 
seq. ; the will and the unconscious mental 
life, 342, seq. 

Unity, as characteristic mark of conscious 
life, 47 ; formal and real unity of con- 
sciousness, 139, seq. 



Vivos. (L.), 291, 292 
V gt (Carl), 60 



W 



Weber (E. H.), on touch and common 
sensation, 115, 123; the delicacy of the 
sense of toucli in different parts of the 
body, 120 ; sensation arises more quickly 
than feeling, 223 

Wilkens, 250 

Will, as first and last, 99, 30B ; the will- 
moment of tliought, 95, 173, seq. ; 315, 
seq. ; will and feeling, 98, seq. ; 301, 317 ; 
psychology of the will, 308 — 348 ; p)hysio- 
logical seat of the will, 311, seq. ; impulse 
and will, 329 ; will and movement, 308 

Wish, 326 

Word-blindness and word-deafness, 

Wundt, on physiological time, 94 ; on 
■ association between the whole and the 
parts, 154; on apperception (conscious 
attention), 161 ; on estimation of time, 
187 ; on apprehension of space, 200, 204 ; 
sensation and feeling, 223 ; analogy of 
sensations, 306 ; motor-centres in the 
cerebrum, 313 ; ph3''siology of attention, 
316 ; doctrine of temperaments, 349 



THE END 



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